50RD THEFTS 




+ 



.toti to BlHiUll Itopfe. 



:V Qm 



HGA 



//&/ u* /£tf < 



&f «a^ 











i •^"('("j^r'C^*,' *'. 1 1 1 


•"4" 






?i$® HH 



; >^-^T-^,$^j£^ :' : 



LIE 






ESS, 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



P.* A 






<Jjh> 



BeVonD the Ruts, 



jfo&d /W*. 



NOTES OK INTRODUCTION 

BY BISHOP W. F. MALLALIEU, 

of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
— AND — 

REV. FRANCIS E. CLARK, D. D., 

President of the United Society of Christian Endeavor. 



CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & STOWE. 

NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON. 

1891. 






OJj^S 



v ^ 



> \ 



The Lib* ky 

OF CoNr;»:-:sS 
WASHINGTON 






"My^ScfJ- 



Copyright by 

CRANSTON & STOWE, 

1890. 



Contents 



Chapter. Page. 

I. A Cry, ii 

II. Some Shrines, 23 

III. Fascinating Footsteps . 33 

IV. Dual Forces, 51 

V. Essentials, 67 

VI. High-water Mark, 93 

VII. Frail but Capable, 103 

VIII. The Anglo-Saxons Ahead, 119 

IX. A Special Goal, 135 

X. At Play, 149 

XI. A Formidable Breastwork, 161 

XII. Forging a Missing Link, 171 

XIII. Straightforward, 183 

3 



DOOOGGfc C3£3GOOC>30QC3QOOC3€30CK300G0003DOOOOC9QOOOOOOOGOQ«Tr^ 




Representative Words. 




ND still another book, and one that will 
JP\. meet a growing demand. There are not too 
many good books. Especially are there not 
too many suitable for the young men and 
1 women of the present day. 

This volume has to do with the formation of 
a pronounced Christian character. If such a char- 
acter shall be attained by the youth of America, 
then the promise of a glorious future will be real- 
ized. The yearning heart of Christ waits with 
infinite desire to enroll the young people in his 
service. The redemptive work of the Savior can 
not be consummated in the salvation of humanity 
without them. But in order to their highest effi- 
ciency they must be intelligent]; they must be thor- 
oughly trained in all goodness ; they must have high 
and holy purposes, aspirations, ambitions ; they must 
know how to meet and overcome all temptations ; 

5 



6 REPRESENTATIVE WORDS. 

they must come into complete fellowship with Christ ; 
they must share the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 

If our young people will carefully and prayer^ 
fully read this book, it will inspire, uplift, and 
strengthen. It would be most profitable if every 
one connected with the Epworth League, the Society 
of Christian Endeavor, and all other young people's 
societies of whatever name, could thoroughly master 
the thoughts and themes of this volume. Would 
that it might be placed in the hands of every young 
Christian in all our Churches ! Never more than now 
was there a supreme need of earnest, illuminated, 
consecrated, diligent, self-denying, self-sacrificing 
Christian youth. This book will serve to develop 
just such Christians. Let it be scattered broadcast. 

W. F. MAIvLALIEU. 



W 



E are willing to admit that there is some- 
thing to be said in favor of ruts. As has 
been remarked, rut is nearly allied, etymologically, 
to route. It is the way of doing anything — a way 
that often becomes too well worn, and out of which 
it is hard to escape. But there are ruts and ruts. 

This bright and wholesome book takes its read- 
ers "Beyond the Ruts" of prejudice, bigotry, and 
formalism ; but not beyond the safe and well-worn 



REPRESENTATIVE WORDS. 7 

way of truth, honor, and obedience. It is emphat- 
ically a book for young people, written by "one of 
them" for many of them. It is a book for young 
people, not only in the sense that it was written for 
them, but that it was written sympathetically and 
with a full understanding of their needs. It is not 
written down to juvenile comprehension; but in its 
strong and masculine grasp of truth it will also 
grasp the young reader and raise him to its plane. 
Some men do not grow old because, while their 
locks whiten and their brows wrinkle, they still 
view the world from the stand-point of youth. 
This is one of the books, we believe, that will re- 
tain its freshness for years, because it has chosen 
its view-point wisely, and looks at life with the eyes 
of a generous and noble youth. Young people have 
uttered the "Cry" with which it opens; they will 
do well to visit the "Shrines" to which it leads 
them; they will delight to follow in its "Fascinat- 
ing Footsteps;" and we hope and pray that march- 
ing " Straightforward," a multitude, through the 
perusal of these pages, may attain the "Essentials" 
of a manly or womanly life as our author sets them 
forth — "Courage," "Consecrated Enthusiasm," and 
the guidance of the "Holy Spirit." 

FRANCIS E. CLARK. 



Jn ffj£ rofjispErmg gallery of fyt ages tfaxz 
are tnuffleb omces, as if 'fixers cfjUbren 
ebbing in fl;e mg[;t 






G^apter pirst. 




A CRY. 

N somebody's dream, the Creator had died. 
The universe was in consternation because 
it was an orphan. Hope, bright-winged 
and gentle, died. Patience, love, faith, and mercy- 
died. Good and bad angels sickened and died. 
Time became extinct. The Eternal gave up the 
ghost. The shroud of God, " unwoven as a woof of 
light," was ready, and the "hearse and bier," 
screened by melancholy and mysterious distances, 
"stood mutely waiting" for the awful burial. The 
dreamer woke in tears, followed by rapturous praises. 
But is not this the child of the atheist's thought? 
And does he not demand that mankind shall father 
it? We are not ready. God is not dead! His foot- 
prints are in all the earth. His voice is in the 
spheres. His right hand is upon the throttle of 
eternity's great engine. Before the sunlight, before 
the mountains, before the sea, even "from everlast- 
ing to everlasting, he is God!" 

ii 



12 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

Nor can we ever rid ourselves of this sublime no- 
tion. "Go and hear the great actor Garrick play 
at the theater to-night ; take a good laugh, and you 
will lose your melancholy broodings about to-mor- 
row." "Alas! Doctor, I am Garrick!" 

Mirth will not stifle this cry of the soul for the 
supernatural. If you try solitude, look out for the 
snap of the revolver and a dying man. Business, 
politics, travel, books — it is vain. This is the su- 
preme question of our life, and it will not down. 
Hedged about on every side as we are by material 
things, and yet threading a path that points forever 
toward a spiritual destiny, it would seem as if we 
should give our best ear to the beautiful voice within 
us that can not be hushed. It was always a favora- 
ble omen when the Grecian oracles found the in- 
quirers to be of a ready and patient turn. 

And so the evidence of God's existence grows 
upon us as the years escape. It intensifies as we 
study closely the mechanism of the universe. Then 
it is that the heavens become " his open face," the 
trembling earth his footstool, and mortal man his 
phenomenal masterpiece. 

The boldest effort the human understanding ever 
makes is to inquire for God. It is impossible to 
reach him by any of the ordinary senses. The eye 
can not see him, the ear hear him, nor can he ever 



A CRY. 13 

be touched, nor even pictured, by the imagination. 
An almighty, infinite, and everlasting uplifting is 
his. His fingers laid upon the mountains, they 
smoke; his breath upon the earth, it quakes. When 
he looks upon the clouds, they are rent in pieces. 
Surely we must acknowledge the force of the reveal- 
ing process in the flaming mountain: "I Am that 
I am." 

'To render this mystery the more troublesome and 
embarrassing, we are conscious of a power amongst 
us and within us which crosses swords with good- 
ness. The passions become inflamed, the motives 
are brimful of guile, the sense of gratitude is blunted, 
and the deeds are offensive to ourselves. Apart 
from this pressure of self-condemnation is the thought 
that we are immortal. In the throes of death the 
soul may writhe and cry amid the billows of im- 
pending evils until, altogether exhausted, it retires, 
lonely and desolate, to eternity's great wailing-place. 

It is in the toils of this dilemma, the soul beating 
about for one ray of light, that an old Book opens 
its story by saying : "In the beginning God did thus 
and so." The mystery is not wholly cleared up, nor 
the light that of midday; but there are scintillations, 
there are movements amid the mists, and you are 
conscious that something is about to happen. The 
voice of the soul deepens. The cry becomes more 



14 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

distinct. Can this Being manifest himself to me? 
If he be the author of light and wisdom and power, 
how can I look into his face ? It is no wonder that 
a bit of sunshine in the east once cried out : " O 
that I knew where I might find him!" This is the 
cry of the ages. It rings out through the earnest 
centuries until it touches human society in every 
clime. Men of the most eccentric conditions and 
the most barbarous ways are dissatisfied with them- 
selves and seek a higher good. The twentieth cen- 
tury men will also make inquiry. That cry is coeval 
with man, and the historic utterances are one and 
the same : " How incomprehensible " is God, and 
yet how necessary to our happiness ! 

If, then, the intellect tires in its exalted flight, and 
the imagination flags though on wondrous pinions, 
and this great Creator can not be comprehended 
either in symbol or ordinary statement, it is a most 
delightful persuasion that somewhat of our nature 
may fully apprehend him. God is a spirit; spirit 
may apprehend spirit. Faith enthrones him in the 
heart. The warm breath of his lips may transfix 
our souls forever in desire and devotion. 

It is true that we are very shy of things we can 
not see. From the beginning of thought until now 
it has been thus. The kindergarten system was used 
amongst a people who lived upon the earth two 



A CRY. 15 

thousand years ago. The tabernacle and temple 
worship were systems of object- teaching. The altars 
and fires, the priests and sacrifices, the swinging 
censers, the songs and marches, the washing of pots 
and wheeling away of ashes, the robes and prayers, — 
all of these were processes of revealing. But in 
after times there was the shock of a revolution. One 
man stood up — " if it be lawful to call him a man " — 
and cried to bewildered multitudes : "lam the way 
to God. No man can come unto the Father but by 
me. Come unto me." The change was abrupt, but 
positive and abiding. 

We accept the idea of a divine messenger whose 
special errand was to unfold this incomprehensible 
mystery and throw the full beams of light athwart 
the darkness of human things. Faith has a sphere 
in which it exercises itself. That sphere is above 
and beyond the senses. It is above the eyes, and 
beyond the ears, and underneath the touch. Its 
mission is to apprehend the real in the realm of the 
spiritual. It has vision. It has a superb range. It 
is not blind, nor whimsical, nor superstitious. It is 
not the child of ignorance, nor the embodiment of a 
cunning device. Its decisions are supreme and final. 
It is a student. It inquires. The colloquy in the 
Castle of Machasrus by the Baptist and his men led 
to that inquiry of faith, " Art thou he, or shall we 



1 6 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

look for another?" and the magnificent answer 
based upon the miraculous character of the new dis- 
pensation. 

This faculty seeks substance for itself. It lives 
by virtue of the nutritious substances furnished from 
above — the old corn of the kingdom, the wine and 
$>il of revelation. This Joseph may make himself 
strange, Simeon maybe held as a hostage; but when 
Benjamin comes, the dearest idol, he will wholly and 
forever disclose himself to the sincere purchaser. 

Involved in mystery as the origin of all things is, 
and being thrust into such wild speculations by the 
nations who are destitute of the Bible, it is a holy 
pleasure to enter upon the records which have stood 
the test of the centuries and let the foundations get 
settled in an intelligent, sublime, and reasonable ac- 
count of how things came. It is manifest that " all 
things have been produced by the Supreme Creative 
Will, acting directly or through the agency of the 
forces and materials of his own production." Faith 
accepts the story also of how man got upon the 
earth, and how he got entangled with evil influences. 
The story is dignified and natural, and no other 
satisfactory solution has been given to the problem. 
Undemonstrated theories must take a back seat in 
the presence of so much truth as is couched in this 
history. And as to getting out of our trouble, 



A CRY. 17 

although a thrice-told tale, it is still thrillingly bold, 
interesting, and capable. Eminently worthy of be- 
lief are the breathings of a Father's love, the lead- 
ings of his marvelous desires, the expression of his 
almighty power in .the atonement. So also is the 
story of man's immortality and final glorification as 
the consummation of plans conceived in the eterni- 
ties. Surely here is a basal point from which we 
may think and move with fidelity to our highest in- 
stincts and interesting hopes. 

Faith is a student in the school of the Holy 
Spirit, whence testimony in an honest way is both 
comforting and inspiring. It is an altogether natural, 
logical, and thinkable proposition, that the Supreme 
Spirit of the universe may and does communicate 
with the spirit of man. This power witnesses to the 
atonement made for souls. He reproves and con- 
victs and sentences. The human body, dowered by 
faith, becomes his temple, and the indwelling is 
clear and transparent upon all the questions of par- 
don, peace, adoption and joy. As to its own super- 
natural phenomena, the fruits, love, long suffering 
and grace, it is equally satisfactory. In the posture 
of pupil, faith now sits in humility; it hangs upon 
living testimony and abides in the almighty and 
self-determining records. As a student it advances 
to higher forms. It studies the administration of 

2 



1 8 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

affairs. It is conscious of the ever-blessed fact that 
there is a divine rewarding of the good, a retribu- 
tive hand of justice upon the evil. To such as dis- 
cern the spiritual, and are diligent in seeking it out 
from the varied forms of pride, idolatry, and super- 
stition, there are disclosures of power and the mani- 
festation of the Infinite. Whilst there are attributes 
which may not be communicated, as omnipotence 
and omnipresence, his love and peace, his grace and 
mercy, his truth and holiness become the heritage 
of those who fear his name. The possibility of such 
experiences is demonstrated by the incarnation, and 
the all-cleansing power of the blood. When one de- 
plores his lack of conformity to goodness, the nature 
is transfigured. When the wicked spirits vanish, the 
Father's face becomes radiant, and the glad summer 
time of the soul appears. See that brace of rainbows 
in the summer's sky! They skirt the horizon and 
bring together the earth and heavens. Peering 
through these semicircles of blended colors into the 
blue ether beyond, you catch glimpses of the mag- 
nificent things which may not be touched. So the 
arch of Old Testament prophecy and of New Testa- 
ment miracle upon which our faith is fixed brings to 
our spiritual vision the blending of the new heavens 
and the new earth, whilst through and beyond are 
stretched in inimitable beauty the power and glory 



A CRY. 19 

of God, revealing the things of our salvation and 
pointing to that which forever abides. 

And no one can outline the possibilities of this 
apprehending power. In our early thinking the act 
of faith must begin so that it may develop into a 
habit. This habit of the days will give the ripest 
fruitage to experience. Here lies the mastery of sin ; 
here the pregnant forces of a perfected manhood. 
Faith's visions are all sharp and well denned. They 
bring us into sympathy with the common brother- 
hood who strive mightily for a world-wide victory 
for the truth. Caste and prejudice flee as shadows, 
and nothing is seen but the conquering hosts. Yes, 
yes ; faith dowers us with the riches and resources 
of the world to come. And who would not give all 
his wealth for one good, substantial, immovable word 
about to-morrow? But faith brings the ultimate truth. 
It is for all. "::' 

Before the Civil War a few gentlemen from the 
North in their vacation visited the Mid-Lothian 
Mines in Virginia. Wandering through the subter- 
ranean passages, they heard the voice of singing. 
When they reached a wicket they found an old 
man humming a chorus closing with the words: 
" And I too shall be dere, in dat great gettin' up 
mornin' of the Lord." The old man was black. He 
was a slave. He was blind. His duties were to 



20 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

open and close the gate at intervals, and there, a 
thousand feet beneath the surface of the earth, seated 
upon a lump of coal, some sweet spirit within helped 
him over the rough places of his life and made him 
contented and happy. The story of the cross was 
the uplifting power. 

We are to be men and women of faith. In an 
age of unbelief it must take upon itself the higher 
forms of knowledge and consecration. If our Young 
People's Societies key-up the undergirding beams 
of the superstructure they are endeavoring to rear, 
the wise Master Builder will not only have pleasure 
in their new-found work, but will be pleased to lay 
the cap-stone itself with his own powerful hand. 



<Earfj';§MtI lafl; to ffiltecra. 



Chapter Second. 

SOME SHRINES. 

¥ £ INHERE is a great fascination about trie place 
-L where we were born. It matters not how 
humble may be the village or uncouth the sur- 
roundings of the country home, our birthplace 
A carries reminiscences even down to our latest 
y ears. The ground where mother walked, and 
where she sought out those holy ministries in the 
heyday of childhood, is holy ground. Nor time, nor 
distance, nor untoward circumstances, can ever blot 
out the sacredness of those hours. The very hills and 
mountains and seclusive by-ways challenge our ad- 
miration. E'en now to visit the old homestead is to 
go alone. Memories troop through the brain, and 
trooping memories are all the companions we desire. 
The streams along which we wandered and in which 
we bathed and fished, the meadows flecked with 
flowers wild and rare, the groves where we plucked 
the first violets in spring-time, the landscapes varied 
and pleasing, the dancing sunbeams, the fugitive 

23 



24 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

shadows, the old mill, the orchard, the glen, — who 
shall rehearse again the old stories associated with 
Ihem? The stranger is there, but God's hills and 
sunshine abide for us. And so, turning to life's 
duties, the face of the old school-master comes back, 
and the green hillock where they laid our gentle 
sister becomes touchingly sacred. 

How many an old soldier turns with delight 
toward Gettysburg, the Rapidan, or Iyookout Mount- 
ain ! There lie the battle-fields of the Union. They 
are infinitely more sacred to him than the Marathon 
or Waterloo of history. There, with his brave com- 
rades, in the dark days of the sixties, he fought out 
the great questions that refused settlement except 
by the shedding of blood. On those historic fields 
of the bivouac and camp-fire, the storm of battle and 
the bleeding troops, he raises again the tattered 
battle-flags, and rehearses the trials and triumphs of 
the past. 

A fugitive traveler found a place, once, where 
bright-winged messengers were climbing a ladder of 
gold, the one end upon the solid earth, the other 
reaching into the unseen. It became a monumental 
spot. 

There is a remnant nation amongst us to-day 
whose ancestors turned, with a sense of security and 
exaltation, toward a power which dwelt between the 



SOME SHRINES. 25 

wings of inquiring cherubim. There the holy fire 
burned night and day, a symbol pure of that 
almighty Being enswathed in light, through whose 
divine leadings they were brought out of slavery. 
It was there that human petitions were mingled with 
supernatural influences, and the people tarried until 
the answers came. 

The American mind ofttimes bows down to 
ignoble things. The craze for extravagant living 
is now upon us. Men on moderate salaries fill 
their homes with expensive bric-a-brac and works 
of art, drive fancy teams, and spend extended terms 
at fashionable resorts or across the sea. All this 
may be at the expense of others ; but still it must be 
so, since it is the edict of fashion. Followed by un- 
natural and dissipating amusements capping a life of 
idleness, the tendencies are in the wrong direction, 
and must bring disaster. The worship at the shrine 
of Bacchus is most deplorable. Mammon, appetite, 
fashion, sinful amusements, are gradually getting the 
better of us. There must come a pause. The let- 
ting down of the moral sense is an alarming symp- 
tom. To what shrine shall we turn that will have 
the authority to correct our aberrations and lead us 
out into the light ? Verity it must be the v altar of a 
perfect surrender in the presence of the Crucified. 
In the holy of holies of one's own eternal desire for 

3 



26 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

God, there the holy coals are pressed to the lips 
until the guilt is burned away, and in ecstasy the 
songs of deliverance are heard, followed by gentle 
whispers, saying: " Send me, send me!" This is 
the New Jerusalem, where the temple stands; this 
a second Mount Gerizim, where the remnant shall 
worship. This is the New Testament mercy-seat — 
the throne of almighty help. The characteristics of 
a throne are power to dispense blessings out of un- 
limited resources, and power to withhold. How fee- 
ble is our arm, how limited our power! We own 
but little. Our stay is brief. Our necessary sub- 
mission to laws over which we have no control, our 
toils and tears and struggles, all imply that whilst 
the purposes of the Creator have been largely inter- 
fered with, he nevertheless has his own way about 
maintaining the order of the world, the order of the 
universe. But, then, this power and these unlimited 
resources find their highest exercise in treating with 
those who are in rebellion. And although devils fly 
from his eye and take up their abode in the caverns 
of despair, though angels veil their faces in his sight, 
sinful men may come even unto his seat — they may 
fill their mouths with arguments ! And, strange to 
say, in the first approach the scepter of righteous- 
ness is extended and the tender of reconciliation is 
made. The weakest are heard. The unworthiest 



SOME SHRINES. 27 

may come. Each one may say what he has to say, 
and the Throne will listen. If one should ask the 
explanation of this, it will only be necessary to 
answer that in the ages eternal the daysman declared 
his holy purposes by opening the secret seals of the 
book, and out of the white heat of his undying 
passion for souls forged the chain which binds the 
soul to the throne of merc} T . It is about time that 
intelligent men, everywhere upon this planet, should 
acknowledge this service, and bend their inmost 
spirits before the divine intercessor. Driven as they 
are from post to pillar by the sins and follies of 
society ; tossed as they are by the adverse winds of 
business, and chased by the hours of the day 
toward an eternal destiny, why shall they not, every 
one, be willing to plead the suretyship of that power 
which took upon itself all of human guilt and 
human sorrow? Let the enemy forbid the banns, 
and rave and fret at the venture, the soul may flee 
to the clefts of the rock, like the trembling dove in 
the time of storm. 

When a man kills a fellow-man, and is incarcer- 
ated in the prison, his first movement is to send for 
an attorney. The attorney says to his client : "I 
do not want you to say to me whether you are in- 
nocent or guilty." He immediately sets up a line 
of defense to prove that the man is innocent. But 



28 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

the guilty soul in sight of the cross must do better 
than this. There must be a clean breast of the 
whole sinful life. It is the secret of the heart that 
is needed. And the confession must be to God and 
not to a priest. There is but one mediator between 
God and man — the man Christ Jesus. The absolute 
exposure of the defiling processes is the key to con- 
scious acceptance. Nor need we wait to be recom- 
mended to the clemency of the crown. The sen- 
tence of death was met on a tree. The proofs are 
in the hands, in the feet, in the side of the advo- 
cate. The soul, dependent, despairing, doomed, 
pleads for justice, and hereby the scandal of the 
cross and of the world becomes the glory of the 
universe. At such a sacred shrine as this, all men, 
everywhere, may get worthy conceptions of living. 
No suicidal hand need touch the life, even though 
it be embarrassed by doubts and fears. The admin- 
istration of affairs may not always be reconciled with 
our notions of justice, and many things may go awry. 
Struggling upward amid untoward circumstances 
and impending dangers, men may say : Will this lane 
never reach the turn ? Will we never touch the top 
of this dreadful hill? Will these winds never get 
with the current and help to drive the craft toward 
its desired haven ? Then doubts prevail. L,et it be 
known then, that the soul can never " cease to lament 



SOME SHRINES. 29 

for that which it can not help " until it is calmed 
into holy quiet upon the bosom of the atonement. 
Through the golden gateway alone of honest prayer 
our weary feet get willing. Alone by faith in the 
Invisible can we hoist the sails and be wafted heaven- 
ward. Alone in the furnace of our trouble can it 
be known, as the refining processes go forward and 
the pure gold is left, that as soon as the Refiner's 
face is distinctly seen the crucible will cool. All 
this is the merciful compensation for being thrust 
out upon a life without having been consulted. 

An invalid for fifteen years, with feeble prospects 
for recovery, writes to a friend of the joyous experi- 
ences which are only bound up in holy submission 
to the laws of her being. The letter breathes the 
most perfect submission and the victory crystallizes 
in one heroic sentence : ' ' My heart keeps singing all 
the time; it can not keep quiet." 

If youth asks for exultation of spirit, if it de- 
sires promotion, it can easily be satisfied. Life may 
have its problems. They may rather increase than 
diminish as the years go b}-. Suffering and effort 
are twin-factors in the struggle for a happy exist- 
ence. The tendency of the heart tends toward super- 
stition or hardness. The insinuating influences of 
unbelief are powerful. The wickedness of the world 
is full of energy. The poverty and wretchedness of 



30 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

many who deserve a better chance than they have, 
is patent to all. Here are labyrinthian paths — 
thickets most bewildering. Still the truth is alive. 
It ought to be told. The remedies are at hand, if 
only men would be willing to try them. That truth 
must go thundering on down the centuries. It is 
the only thing that can satisfy human desire. From 
the hill-tops of honest investigation the reveille must 
be sounded. The Christian Church in her member- 
ship — the " Old Guard of the Army " — must pre- 
serve her integrity and listen to the voice of the 
Chief Commander, which has in it the ring of cer- 
tain victory. The golden candlesticks which still 
remain, and the stars which move and shine, must 
remember that they fight for the man who is girt 
about the paps with a golden girdle, and has upon 
his thigh the symbol of perfect and perpetual sover- 
eignty. 



JMienotrtBnal Blanfjoob, J^^nomBnat Mltex- 




SQQOGOOO£3QQQQe3QOQQOOOQe3GQ£3e300QOe3GOOOOaGOOQOOOe3GOO€ 



G^apter Tr^ird. 

FASCINATING FOOTSTEPS. 

every known meter the bards of history 
have sung the excellence of the Man who 

came out of Galilee. The prophets have been 

proclaiming his virtues, the limners outlining 
k his features, the authors pronouncing upon his 

incomparable merits. 

If there is an3 7 thing fragrant or beautiful in the 
field or garden, it is contrasted with him. By so 
much ma} 7 a believing woman, cultivating her flow- 
ers or walking amid the bloom and beauty of the 
3 T ear, keep fresh in her mind the lily of the valley 
and the rose of Sharon. No less may the farmer 
whose thoughts rise above the seed-time or harvest 
or growing crops, be able to say, the true corn of 
wheat once lay in the sepulcher of Joseph, and the 
true vine became a branch running over the wall. 

If there should be found sublimity in the heavens, 
it finds a truthful counterpart in the Messiah. And 
he who has confided his all to truth will touch the 

33 



34 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

chords of true delight as he basks in the Sun of 
Righteousness or is guided into higher things through 
the shining of the Star of Bethlehem. 

If there is anything substantial in masonry, taste- 
ful in architecture, or brilliant in design, it is fully met 
in the one in whom the whole building fitly framed 
together groweth up into a holy temple. 

Or perhaps there may be recognized a certain 
prestige in arms, valor in battle, glory in conquest — 
yet nothing can surpass the victories of truth. 

But when the lens is turned upon our common 
humanity, the figures are all changed, and the 
changes are rung upon the guides that are blind 
and the slaves that are unclean. 

And the wonder is magnified when it is known 
that the sum of all beauty, truth, and power is cap- 
tivated by such deformity. It can possibly be only 
explained that there is a hidden image of the Divine 
lying within the debris of our natures, which is to be 
restored through the fellowship of suffering. 

Character is indeed destiny. We all start from 
a low plane — babyhood, in more senses than one. 
Our life is bitter with the conflict — the battle with 
the giants. It is well to be always on guard. The 
best artists are the men who have studied and are 
willing to imitate the old masters. The sculptor 
who would stand at the forefront of his profession 



FASCINATING FOOTSTEPS. 35 

must linger long in the academies and over the frag- 
ments of Grecian culture, even after the crowds have 
dispersed. 

Much depends upon the standard. If we aim 
low, we will find the arrow has taken a little drop 
more in its flight. If we persist in seeking that 
which is medium, the results must partake of that 
nature. But should we wish to touch the highest 
things, the mark must be elevated and kept forever 
in sight. 

In the matter of character it is possible to find a 
superlative model, only it will be essential that we 
do not seek for it in the wrong places. The ancient 
Church was full of worthies. Their words and deeds 
are enshrined in the archives of human things. 
But which one of these could we elect with safety 
and be secure in thought or deed? Abraham? 
Moses ? Elijah ? Good men as they were, some weak- 
ness, some sin, attaches itself to them. They fall 
far below our own ideal of right living at times, and 
are never of sufficient strength to join fortunes 
with us as examples looking into the eternities. 

The only all-sufficient, all-conquering name that 
is worthy of mention in a connection such as this, 
is the name of the Christ of God. Of him it has 
been well said " that it were easier to untwist the 
beams of light in the sky, separating and expunging 



36 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

one of the colors, than to get the character of Jesus — ■ 
which is the real gospel — out of the world." The 
character and life of Jesus become the exalted 
standard for men and women of to-day. 

IyOok, if you will, at his magnificent ideals ol 
thought and service and his undying passion for 
them. He had scarcely been thrust out upon his 
remarkable career of effort until he announced one 
of the greatest principles which could ever penetrate 
the soul of man. What was it ? Have faith in God. 
Only worship in the sanctuary of your spirit and 
bow down at the shrine of love and duty, and all 
things will get into harmony. He taught that, as 
soon as man lost the image of God, he also lost the 
knowledge of him. In his diligent search afterward, 
man was led into the dreadful labyrinths of doubt 
and bewilderment. He began to make a God out of 
nature — to deify the sun because the sun poured his 
beams upon the soil, and from the soil he got his 
bread. He worshiped the moon, because the moon, 
as a mailed maiden, swept the circuit of the sky and 
chased away the darkness of the night. He chanted 
hymns to the early dew as it sparkled on the grass- 
to the silvery sheen of the lakes — to the boundless 
and unconquerable seas. 

From the symbolism of nature he turned to his 
fellows, and out of the heroes of the battle-field and 



FASCINATING FOOTSTEPS. 37 

elsewhere arose the gods of mythology. From these 
he turned to the subtleties of philosophy and of 
men's opinions. 

But Jesus turned the face of humanity altogether 
in a different direction. He reasserted, illumi- 
nated, and enforced the splendid ideas of the Old 
Testament Scriptures. He said, there is one God. 
This God is the creator and upholder of all things. 
Adore him. Pour out your soul's desire at his feet. 
If you do, he will pronounce upon you the most 
golden benedictions. He goes further. Investigate 
the claims of the Messiah, and confess that he is the 
Son of God. The proofs are lying imbedded in my 
miracle-pow r er ; in the absolute divinuy of my doc- 
trines ; in the fulfillment of the prophesies which 
relate to me; in the preaching of John; in the 
divine anointing that is upon me as the poor get the 
gospel, and by the sovereignty of that voice which 
said: "This is my well-beloved Son, hear ye him." He 
insisted that if they would only build upon the rock, 
they should be saved from the calamities of the 
judgment hour ; the}^ should inherit eternal life. He 
advances still further. He taught that men must 
submit to the divine superintendency. This Crea- 
tor, God, is your Father. Commune w T ith the spir- 
itual, abstain from retaliation, renounce your sinful 
self, live for others, seek direction of the Holy 



38 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

Spirit, cast yourself upon the mercy of the atone- 
ment. What shall happen? "Even the hairs of 
your head shall be numbered ; " " And for your sakes 
I will sanctify myself, that ye also may be sancti- 
fied; " and, " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
end of the world." These are the ambitious ideals 
which are held up to this generation. These are the 
joys that may possess us entire, and abide with us 
forever. 

The Savior was also a man of faith and prayer — 
in one sense, indeed, subordinate to the Father, as 
he says, " My Father is greater than I." It is to 
be supposed that he meant that, in the capacity of a 
Redeemer, he was a free agent, coming to do a 
special work, consequently thrown into a new rela- 
tion to law ; and hence the necessity for him to be- 
come obedient, which obedience required an active 
faith. He held, therefore, in check his awakened 
purposes at twelve years of age, when, in the 
temple, he said that he was about his Father's 
business. He did not enter upon his work until 
thirty years of age. His mission then became to 
himself a thing of great prominence and power. 
He permitted John to induct him into office. The 
grand scheme of his life became a well-defined con- 
ception. What he is to do, what he will encounter, 
where he is to go, with what instrumentalities he 



FASCINATING FOOTSTEPS. 39 

will move forward, with what spirit he will meet 
the tempter, how he will confront the unbelief of 
men, [and how endure in the great trial-hour of 
death, — these things became positive convictions 
opening up before him, and upon which he fixed 
his faith. He had faith in his own mission — his 
power to save. As some one suggests, he had to 
submit himself both to men and God — a man fight- 
ing for his own home. Did it not require faith to 
go into that conflict with the infernal powers on 
the mountain in the midst of the fast; faith to 
resist calmly the mob at his first sermon ; faith to 
stand against the bitter prejudices of the Pharisees 
and the envy of the Sadducees, the plot against his 
life; faith to submit to the apprehension and trial, 
the drinking of the bitter cup in the garden — to 
endure the cruel mockings and scourgings and the 
crucifixion upon the tree? Such temptations, such 
trials, such persecutions — so subtle, so heart-rending, 
so powerful — never fell upon free agency before nor 
since. Our Master had faith also in the agencies 
which he called into requisition for the propagation 
of the truth. He chose men ; not angels, but men. 
He chose them with great care ; not men who were 
wrapped up in the corpse-like mummeries of the 
Pharisees, nor the cold, bloodless intellectualisms of 
the Sadducees ; but good men — men of strong com- 



40 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

mon sense, men who could love and suffer. They 
were to possess and continue in his spirit. Their 
old prejudices had to give way. They had to swear 
eternal fealty to his cause, or they could not be sent. 
Did he cure the blind? So must they. Did he un- 
loose the tongues of the dumb? So must they. 
Did he turn back the flood-tides of prejudice and 
evil in men ? So must they. Did he tell a simple 
story of God's great love? They must repeat it, 
time and again. He had faith in these men that 
they would do it all. "Will ye also go away?" 
was his "pathetic appeal. No. Then " I send you 
forth." 

He also had faith in the divine time. "My 
hour is not yet come. How am I straitened till my 
work is accomplished !" He is passive. He hides 
from the multitude. He hushes those who are 
healed, nor allows them to tell how they were 
healed. When his time came, he passes the trans- 
ition point, and comes out boldly, and declares that 
he is equal with God and sent to destroy the 
temple worship. He permits the multitude to cry 
" Hosanna !" and throw their coats in the path- 
way. He believes, too, that his cross shall draw 
men to God, even to the latest generation ; that it 
shall be forever the supreme magnet of the nations. 

Every life has in it a plan. But to those who 



FASCINATING FOOTSTEPS. \l 

believe, it is made manifest with every passing 
hour. There is the plot. There are coincidences, 
actors, hidden motives, duties, results. They are all 
clearly marked out. So, in order to meet our 
duties and slay our foes, knock down unbelief, 
withstand wicked men, and be positive factors for 
truth in an evil world, it requires faith — active, liv- 
ing, abounding faith. We need to look to the 
standard. 

A gentleman traveling in South Carolina was 
compelled to pass a swollen stream on horseback. 
A little nervous, and not accustomed to riding, he 
found himself going down the stream and getting 
into the deep water. In his grief, and hardly knowing 
what to do, he heard a voice upon the bank of the 
river, upon the opposite side, crying, "Fix your eye 
upon this tree and resist the stream !" He did so, 
and soon came out safely. The voices from beyond 
us seem to be crying out] continually: *L,ook to 
Jesus and resist the tide! 

Look, then, at the enthusiasm of Jesus in trying 
to save the brotherhood of men. His life was brim- 
ful of toil. It contrasted strongly with the slug- 
gish life of the Oriental people. See his remarkable 
itineraries through the land, his miraculous efforts, 
his thrilling sermons and conversations, his process 
of management in sending out the seventy and the 

4 



42 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

twelve. There is crowded into that life an inten- 
sity of desire and a glory of purpose worthy of an 
ambassador of a universal salvation. And consider 
well, too, his methods. He associated with the 
thought of his day. The Jews had lived in Bab- 
ylon for seventy years. Whilst they did not aban- 
don their own religion for that of Zoroaster, yet a 
large body of them, under Manasseh, renounced 
the books of the Bible, save the Pentateuch, mod- 
ified the Jewish ritual, and built a temple on Mount 
Gerizim. They were Samaritans. Jesus threw the 
apple of discord among them early. He sat down 
at the well, and overthrew their loose ideas of mar- 
riage and divorce. He denounced their theory 
about Mt. Gerizim being the only place to worship, 
and, through the woman, brought the whole town 
into a better way of thinking. The Jews had also 
been under the dominion of the Greeks. Alexan- 
der the Great had overthrown Palestine and Syria. 
Many of the Jews became Grecian citizens. But 
the Greeks were pagans. Their gods were celestial, 
marine, infernal. Sacrifices were offered to them. 
Certain Greeks came and said: "Sir, we would see 
Jesus." How did he at once begin to override their 
notions about the many gods ! How did he cry out 
against the darkness of their superstitious ways! 
Under the reign of the Maccabees, Antiochus, a 



FASCINATING FOOTSTEPS. 43 

heathen conqueror, had defiled the temple by offer- 
ing swine upon the altar of sacrifice. He slew large 
numbers of the Jews, and refused the rite of cir- 
cumcision to be recognized. He burned every copy 
of the Bible, and dedicated the temple to Jupiter. 
But under the Maccabees the people were free 
again ; and now their patriotism outran their relig- 
ion, and the Messiah must, of necessity, be a tem- 
poral king. But the Savior said : " My kingdom is 
not of this world." 

So he met every form of error amongst the peo- 
ple of the day. In this age of self-seeking and 
money-grabbing — this age of doubt and indifference — 
we must ally ourselves with all the higher forms of 
truth. If there ever was a time when the leaders 
of public thought should gird themselves afresh for 
the conflict, it is to-day. It is not difficult to de- 
termine, either, upon which side of the great ques- 
tions which stir American society to-day Jesus 
would be found. His attitude toward the sacredness 
of the Sabbath, the sacredness of the marriage cov- 
enant, the Sunday newspaper, the use and sale of 
intoxicating liquors, and the like, would be most 
positive and declarative. How would he condemn 
that doctrine of devils that the public taste is so 
vitiated that it needs the rehashing of all the gossip, 
murders, horse-races, etc., in the daily newspaper! 



44 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

Or that other equally hateful idea, that there is noth- 
ing beyond the grave, so that we may eat and drink 
and die without fear ! His philanthropic soul would 
pour out its complaint at the bar of a perverted pub- 
lic sentiment until a verdict pure and good should 
be extorted from the ballot-box, and from the pulpit 
and the home. Shall his own dear children be less 
interested than he ? There is also to be seen in these 
foot-prints of the Son of Man the depth, tenderness, 
and fidelity of affection. It is a charming thing to 
be loved. The world is not half so weary when we 
know that some one is holding us in sweet remem- 
brance. If only some one will share our trial — 
some one divide our joys! Who does not remember 
the warm kiss of a mother when awaking in the 
morning — her tender words, her loving methods, 
her unconquerable devotion? One of the purest 
breathings from Heaven to earth was the sentence 
to Daniel : " O Daniel, thou art greatly beloved." 
And the Savior's love had no hesitating moods. It 
was uniform, agreeable, constant. He humbled him- 
self that he might gain the love of all. He suffered 
in his appetites. He hungered, he wept, he was 
poor. He suffered in his feelings. He was a dis- 
appointed man. He came in the spirit of a brother 
to sympathize with others ; but he was neglected, mis- 
represented, betrayed. He suffered being tempted. 



FASCINATING FOOTSTEPS. 45 

Was it a temptation to apostatize : " Fall down and 
worship me?" A temptation to revolt under the 
pressure, "Father, if it be possible let this cup pass 
from me?" Who shall tell his agony when Satan's 
hour came? Or who delineate the agonies of the 
cross ? But under the touch of this holy friendship, 
how sensitive becomes the human conscience ! When 
he speaks, how the affections waken into the most 
matchless desires ! How hope flings herself upon 
the bosom of the gracious promises ! How faith as- 
sumes her regal functions, and launches out upon 
the illimitable ranges of immortality ! How love 
propounds her exhilarating questions, and enthrones 
herself in the highest places ! How the surges of 
sorrow sink back, and the storm-clouds disappear ! 
Yes, yes; God is love ! God is love ! 

And to what goal do these footsteps lead? Cer- 
tainly to a wise and masterful self-hood in the best 
things of life. What are the best things? Some 
say gold, others mental gifts, others position. Will 
we submit to such a rendering? Hardly. Rather 
we should say, sanctified gold, sanctified mind, sanc- 
tified influence ; conscious power at the throne of 
grace ; power with men in leading them to the 
Crucified ; power to do God's will, and an uplifting 
of spirit in the things of Heaven. Who are the best 
characters in history— the present reigning monarchs, 



46 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

or those who have died? The victorious generals 
who have come back from the fields of carnage and 
blood? The arrogant millionaires who have luxuri- 
ated in the things of the present ? Hardly ! Who 
then ? The Matthews, who have given up their un- 
lawful gains in order to follow Christ. The Pauls, 
who have surrendered their bigoted notions of re- 
ligion to inquire for the better way. The Johns, 
whose spirit of revenge changed to loving tender- 
ness. The poor widows, who have put into the 
treasury their whole living. The Marys and Dor- 
cases and I^azaruses. The Bunyans, bound in jail 
for the truth's sake. The Wesleys and Calvins and 
Whitefields and Simpsons. These, these are the 
men and women who have touched the scepter of 
almighty love, and have entered into the secrets of 
redeeming mercy. 

The footsteps of Jesus lead, moreover, to a holy 
and abiding citizenship in the best things of to- 
morrow. Heaven is God, and into the fullness of 
God's love and power the Savior leads us. Those 
who dwell in love dwell in God. I see a company 
of good men threading their way toward Mount 
Olivet. Their Leader has captivated their affections. 
They are hushed into silence at his matchless pres- 
ence and words. All authority is his. " He stands 
there, not by accident. Chance did not make him, 



FASCINATING FOOTSTEPS. 47 

He is not the last letter in the great chapter of ac- 
cidents; but he is the ke}^stone to the bridge, placed 
in the bridge by the great Architect and Master- 
builder, that the two great piers may not front each 
other in ragged and grim isolation, but may have a 
stately arch across the ages, over which humanity, 
in its onward march, may pass with ever-acceler- 
ating haste and speed to its home in God." " Go," 
he exclaims — "go into all the world and disciple men. 
Baptize them. Lo, I am with you." Holy hour ! 
Royal commission ! But now he escapes their vision. 
As the parted clouds appear, he ascends. L,egions 
of holy ones conduct him to the skies. He is en- 
throned far above all principalities and powers, with 
a name that is above every name, and we behold as 
with open face the glory of the Lord, and are to be 
changed into the same image from glory to glory. 



BBfitiEEtt ffj£ IThtBs rsab ffjE Better Jorms 
rofjtrlj ^Trxtf^ ran rosar. 

49 




Gl^apter pourtl^. 

DUAL FORCES. 

OME one has said that the " trade-winds 
i(^ QD of the Almighty blow forever toward the 
f \^ west." That is perhaps the reason the captain 
of the Mayflower cast anchor at Plymouth 
Rock, and led the brave men and women, who 
were to be seen by their deeds and not their 
words, to set up housekeeping on these shores, where 
every one of us might have an equal chance in the 
race of life. There is no aristocracy of learning or 
position or wealth among us. We hold to the 
broadest culture for all, and the most energetic 
measures of self-help in useful lines. We are alto- 
gether pledged to the people — no sex in mind — no 
aristocracy in privilege. A boot-black may look at 
a sunset ; a hod-carrier aspire to the Presidency ; a 
kitchen-girl become a scholar. 

Milton represents truth as a body hewn into 
pieces, and the men and women of the earth en- 

5i 



52 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

gaged in a diligent search to bring them together to 
produce a unit. L,ove and dut}' are charming sis- 
ters ; and when they rise up in their distinctive minis- 
tries of truth and effort, we might as well surrender 
early, for they are bent on the final victory. But 
where shall the truth be found? and in what sphere 
of holy thought shall the intellect range ? There can 
be but one answer; viz., in the works and word 
of God. Three great testaments they are, and com- 
petent for all conditions of mind. Transmitted as 
they have been to the people of this planet, we ac- 
cept them as the unfailing reservoir of satisfaction. 
We may bend at the shrine of a gracious privilege. 
The dial will mark the hours which, beaming with 
light, prophesy for each a golden future. To such 
ample privileges we should accept at once the deed 
in fee simple tendered to us by the Creator himself. 
It is a great boon to pause amid the tumult of 
the days, and go out into Nature and catch a fresh 
note from her joyous song. Here the finer feelings 
are touched, and the secret soul is swept by the 
most inspiring symphonies. Art has indeed great 
power. It can create, it can inspire the profound- 
est admiration. Go through one of our great acad- 
emies of fine arts, consult the catalogue, face the 
touches in oil and colors, and go away to praise 
or criticise. But in Nature 3^ou will do better. 



DUAL FORCES. 53 

She hangs up, with deft and almighty fingers; her 
magnificent landscapes, and makes them free to all. 
See her mountain glens ! See her inland lakes ! 
Look upon her changing seasons — her rivers, run- 
ning like threads of silver to the sea ! Listen ! 
Her songs are in the shadows of the hedges, and 
touch the passing clouds. The tints of the autumn 
sunset at close of day, and the Almighty God 
"hanging out his lanterns in the dome of the sky," 
make one stand in awe, and pronounce upon the 
majesty and power of the things which we did not 
make. Irresistible influences throw about you a 
mystic spell. Why? The artists of nature mix 
their colors in the laboratory of the eternities. They 
work out their conceptions upon a scale beyond the 
power of human thought. They put the seal of 
utility and pleasure upon the whole. Nature in the 
heart of the mountains is a thrilling study. Pen- 
etrate its solitude, and in the presence of the lofty 
pines, the silences of midnight, and the lone cry of 
the bird, creep within the sense of your own little- 
ness and think of God. 

One autumn day I got the first real glimpse of 
nature's wildness. As the train swept through the 
passes, hugged the bluffs, or crept along the water- 
courses, cleaving the hills or leaving them in the 
rear, from my seat on the engine I said : " Where 



54 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

did the Almighty get the patterns for the things 
which gleam and dance and shine in these sun- 
beams? Where is this unseen laboratory located?" 
Now, we do not deify nature. It is not right to 
worship in the cathedral of immensity, and with 
mawkish sentimentality bow down before the si- 
lences and secrets of material things. Not at all. 
But bounded by illimitable things, it is impossible 
not to recognize the fingers of an Omnipotent Being. 
Now, Nature may put on a melancholy air, then 
again an imperial look, and now again, with an au- 
dacious venture, may seem to try and drive man 
from off the face of the globe into utter oblivion. 
Still, she is not without parentage. The idea that 
the world has always existed is a foolish absurdity ; 
or that nature, springing from an original germ, 
evolved the various species of animal, plant, and 
human life without a divine mind to direct and 
shape, is the merest sentimental twaddle, taught by 
whom it may be taught. "A million of ages can 
not develop the eye of a toad or the lungs of a 
honey-bee." Atoms can not be invested with life, 
and capable of inherently manufacturing now a 
plant, now a tree, now a bird, and now the brain 
of a man. It requires the union of intelligence and 
will to do that. Design does imply personality. The 
material world where we roam and suffer reminds one 



DUAL FORCES. 55 

of a well-planned house. The kitchen and pantry, 
the parlor and dining-room and chambers, are all in 
the right place, thought out by intelligence. 

That great ship of the desert, the camel, with 
its broad, elastic foot, immense reservoir stomach, 
its prodigious powers of endurance, is perfectly 
adapted to its mode of life, and had no choice in 
anything. Some thoughtful intelligence wrought 
for its necessities. Marine life has but little in 
common with land animals. What wonderful traits 
and suggestive features are found in all kinds of 
animal life ! Some burrow in the soil, others live 
on trees ; some have coats of mail ; some seek the 
light, others again dwell in darkness. The tropics 
yield the rice and cocoa, the bread-fruit and mango. 
The arctics produce the walrus and seal and bear. 
So, also, the climate and the needs of the people 
on the earth correspond. Nature sings of her di- 
vine paternity. Men ought to listen to her voice. 
As the years escape, the true student of the gospel 
becomes more and more enamored with the outside 
world. The soul, though, must be keen enough to 
catch the key-note, which in every case is God. 
Whether we look upon the rolling spheres, or stand 
in the presence of midsummer's glories, or by the 
sea and listen at the roll of the waves, one thought 
alone is worthy our lips — Almighty God and myself. 



56 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

If nature be, then, such a brilliant revealing 
process ; if it makes one thoughtful and reverent ; 
if it fills us with fear and admiration, it also leads 
us out from its own inexorable secrets into that 
other Book where there are the unfoldings of a di- 
vine love, compassion, and grace. 

The Bible is indeed something for us to think 
about. It is harmonious and unique. Fifty men, 
living in different periods of the world, produce a 
volume not simply of sixty-six distinct books, but 
sixty-six books pronouncing with authority upon 
every subject with which man has to deal, past, 
present, and future; the historic past, when man, 
as a spectator or actor, has left nothing upon record 
to show that he was there; that past back of human 
history where man was not, — in that process of times 
the Bible outlines the methods of the Great Archi- 
tect, the purposes, plans, and doings thereof, and 
calls to witness the beings who are beyond our 
touch, beyond our sight. 

It traces in detail the history of a people who 
were great — not in riches, perchance, as they came 
out of slavery ; not in art, for the Greeks surpassed 
them ; not in military renown, for the Roman arms 
conquered them and held them in subjection for 
years ; but rich in the heroic deeds of their ances- 
tors in all the moral and spiritual battle-fields of 



DUAL FORCES. 57 

life. Their prophets were extraordinary men ; their 
priests were typical of the beautiful and holy min- 
istrations of the temple ; their kings were crowned 
in the interests of wholesome government, and of 
redressing the wants of the poor; their laws were 
rigid and severe against all manner of crime ; their 
poets were devotional and expectant; and their 
women full of simplicity, heroism, and goodness. 

That holy Book walked out into the mighty cor- 
ridors of the future without fear or favor. Its lab- 
yrinthian ways presented to the eyes of the Hebrew 
prophets the boldest imagery. They did not miss 
in their calculations. What they said came to pass. 
What they did, the}' did in the interests of our com- 
mon humanity. How thrillingly bold and compre- 
hensive its statements concerning the typical man, 
the new and final gospel, the supreme and abiding 
faith ! It has a marvelous utterance to-day — mar- 
velous scope, marvelous influence ! It is five 
thousand years old, but its brow is still wet 
with the dew of youth. It has found its way 
through the wreck of the centuries. Other litera- 
tures have become musty in cloistered libraries, or 
have been destroyed by fire and flood. Nothing 
remains of Egyptian, Assyrian, or Chaldee litera- 
ture save a few remnant pen-pictures or shattered 
hieroglyphics. But this text-book of the ages is 



58 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

the same fresh, golden, captivating thing it was 
when the thrones of the Orient were in their 
ripest glory. 

And what has that Book to say about To-mor- 
row ? Does it throw any light upon the Hereafter ? 
A brilliant writer draws the comparison between 
two Greek books — the Odyssey and the New Tes- 
tament. He tells the story of how Ulysses, the 
prisoner of Circe, was released upon condition that 
he should visit Cimmerri, the abode of the dead, 
and learn something of his future. As he entered, 
the ghosts came near to drink some blood, which 
gave them the power of speech. Every one was in 
a condition of despair. One of his old comrades 
came sobbing, to tell the doleful story of how he 
had been killed. His mother eluded his embrace, 
and, flitting from place to place, went shivering in 
the dark retreats. Agamemnon, the great general, 
was in the same plight. Achilles, although reign- 
ing there, said he had better be the slave of the 
meanest man on earth. This was the abode of the 
best people among the Greeks. Sisyphus, a crim- 
inal, was rolling stones forever as a punishment for 
his deeds; Tantalus was tantalized with cups of 
water, which he could never reach to quench his 
thirst; while Tityus was ever being devoured by 
vultures. 



DUAL FORCES. 59 

This is the brilliant conception the learned 
Greeks had of futurity unaided by revelation. Now 
the writer turns to the teachings of the New Tes- 
tament, showing how " complete was the victory of 
the Man of Nazareth, and how it is possible for man 
to attain to the glory of a resurrection unto life and 
power." 

All the master spirits of infidelity have, in turn, 
vented their spleen in denouncing this Book. They 
have ridiculed its miracles, upbraided its heroes, and 
hurled innumerable curses at its doctrines. But they 
have gone down ! Their orations are in oblivion ! 
The holy truths of Scripture, on the other hand, are 
enshrined in the hearts of untold millions, and are 
destined to live on and on until the latest genera- 
tion has faded out of existence. 

The shafts of satire from Lucretius, Volney, and 
others have not dismantled nor dislodged the truth. 
The wrecks of their efforts strew the beach of the 
inglorious past. The red-hot fires of eloquence in 
which Mirabeau, Rousseau, and others sharpened 
their tools to cut in pieces the chains of gospel 
truth, have long since gone out for want of fuel. 
But the forges of God have multiplied themselves 
indefinitely, and busy workmen are adding link to 
link of that golden chain which is to bind the be- 
lieving race to the anchorage of the skies. Hobbes, 



60 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

Voltaire, and Paine would, first of all, shut us up on 
this planet, amid its sins and sorrows, without a 
God, and then put us into the grave as the prey of 
worms and the grindings of the ages. But we pro- 
pose to "keep the Heavenly Father in the midst." 
The harmonies of the Book shall be as agreeable to 
us as Handel's Messiah or Mendelssohn's Elijah 
to the ear of the cultivated musician. The Bible is 
the inbreathing of rhythmic voices. 

Is life, then, a game of chance? I guess not. 
Many start in the race at a great disadvantage. But 
adverse things often work out splendid results. All 
with us have a chance, and it is the election of the 
chance for which we plead. It is possible for all 
young people beginning life to become competent 
in all the proprieties of excellent speech — possible 
to range the inviting fields of current literature, and 
do well in spite of birth or environment. 

Hugh Miller's parentage was nothing of which 
to brag. His educational advantages were very lim- 
ited. Still, he rose to distinction, and chiefly through 
his own indomitable push. Whilst his gay comrades 
were sparring, smoking, or playing euchre, he was 
taking up the shreds of time and weaving the web 
of a successful life. Men say, Yes, but it was a 
brilliant intellect in the rough. 

Well, the power to penetrate is acquired. You 



DUAL FORCES. 61 

can get inside of a thing if you only will. Skim- 
ming the surface is easy enough, but pluck goes to 
the quick. The sermons in stones and books, and 
in running brooks, are matters of study. 

To such as by happy parentage, early habits, 
and average literary advantages, enter the arena to 
do and dare, the possibilities are golden. With 
earnest methods and diligent application and patience 
to plod, we all may gather up some ripened sheaves 
at the last; or, gleaning behind the reapers, may have 
some part in the Harvest Home. Certainly we can 
glean. It is not genius that we need to do that. It 
is downright effort — effort at enlarging and develop- 
ing the mental powers. It is getting a grip on 
things. It is turning things to account. 

Are we in love with history? L,et us capture the 
historic epochs, one by one, and fix some center 
from which to take our observations. We may be- 
come familiar with the grand movements of society 
or with those in which the world has been the 
sufferer through ignoble deeds. 

If art has attractions, then the picture-galleries 
should be studied. The lives of the masters may be 
studied ; the struggles and victories and deeds of 
these benefactors of the race known. Though seem- 
ingly cold and hard, the sculptured chisel will breathe 
and live, the pencil glow and move. 



62 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

If one would study men, note the prominent his- 
toric characters in a given period, study their 
idiosyncrasies, avoid their errors, learn to absorb 
the great things of their life without imitating errors, 
let us study men in classes, for they are put up in 
classes. The pessimist is the same melancholy, un- 
happy fellow in one town that he is in another. The 
broad, generous, whole-souled man has his counter- 
part in every community. The automaton is one 
and the same, whether found in the city full or coun- 
try sparse. 

Let us develop capacity. The mind is an ever- 
expanding thing, and the soul has no limitations. 
The habit of close, consecutive, honest thought en- 
riches. One under such circumstances becomes a 
source of wealth to himself. A miner may dig coal 
or ore during his whole life- time for so many cents 
per day. His life-time may enrich his employer, but 
he has only an honest livelihood. But it can not be 
so with that man who digs down until he strikes the 
great seams and beds of undiscovered truth. He 
gets rich in the simple but undivided effort of 
the days. 

A merchantman upon the high seas may become 
unseaworthy and be driven to the stocks for repairs, 
or go down to the bottom of the ocean because of 
the immense cargoes which it has carried to enrich 



DUAL FORCES. 63 

others, but carrying such goods as scholars do, God 
will see to it that the desired haven is reached in 
safety. 

A farm maylget impoverished by the tremendous 
crops taken from it from year to year, but the soil 
of the intellect nourishes itself from the repeated 
crops which are harvested from its expansive 
acres. 

And yet the intellect divorced from the affec- 
tional nature, which finds its supreme object of 
worship in God — the intellect may run into all man- 
ner of absurdities. Mr. Ingersoll's mind is wholly 
unbridled. It reminds you of the Wandering Jew. 
As Jesus was on the way to the place of cruci- 
fixion, the legend goes, he sat down in front of this 
man's house upon a stone. With curses, the Jew 
drove him away. The Savior said: "And thou 
shalt wander to and fro upon the earth until I 
come." A great poet has immortalized the story. 
He says: "The mountain torrents find, at last, a 
quieting resting-place after wildly tossing over their 
craggy beds. The clouds, though driven through 
the air hither and yon, fasten themselves, at last, 
upon the heads of the hills. The chamois finds 
a quiet nook, the raven a harbor, in the bosom of 
the cliffs ; the sea-horse is rocked to slumber upon 
the waves, and the ostrich broods upon its eggs 



64 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

when the night comes on ; but as for the Wandering 
Jew, he never nears the goal of his desire." 

But how different with the mind that is calmly 
resting on Bible truth, and bows down itself in the 
presence of a holy aspiration! It can never be 
driven from its happy moorings. 



®^re is no Mitemalxxnz— M must be zo. 




Chapter pi?th. 

ESSENTIALS. 

PART FIRST-COURAGE. 

N one of the French picture-galleries there 
are hundreds of battle-pieces, taken from 
French history ; but they are all victories. The 
people are flattered, the youth inflamed, and 
deception practiced upon the ignorant, as if 
there were no dark pages of defeat, as at Wat- 
erloo or Sedan. There is, too, but little recog- 
nition of God in their eventful but melancholy 
history. 

None of us may glory in the past. The eye 
must be filled with the failures and defeats which 
mark that past, and learn to guard with fidelity all 
the weakest points. We must not fail to be cogni- 
zant of the skill of our foes, and realize that it is 
the last victory that counts. Our life is many-sided. 
It is as changeful and diversified as a landscape in 
autumn. If any one supposes that he can get for- 
ward in life without courage, he will not go far 

67 



68 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

until he is forced to the conclusion that life is a 
series of stern and relentless facts — facts stern 
enough to beat him out, unless fully armed and 
having a brave spirit. The best spirits amongst us 
are the men and women who believe this idea, and 
gird themselves for a valiant fight. 

Courage is a compound. It is made up of rea- 
son, expectation, trust. It is that firmness of soul 
which is willing to brave any danger or difficulty 
without fear or depression. It is more than forti- 
tude. Fortitude is passive courage. It endures 
with an unbroken spirit, but does not assume the 
aggressive. Courage is greater than boldness. A 
bold man may be a rash man. A courageous man 
is not over-sanguine; for that implies hope without 
regard to the conditions. Courage dares. It en- 
dures, it perseveres, it keeps the end in view, it 
has a goal. It considers, and weighs, and estimates, 
and resolves, and makes the effort. It outstrips not 
only its antagonist, but pushes past even hope 
itself. 

No extraordinary achievements have been gained 
anywhere without the practice of this great prin- 
ciple. In art, in science, in invention, in discov- 
ery, this simple word of two syllables has been 
seen upon every banner. Courageous men have 
bridged the sea with wire; they have caught the 



ESSENTIALS. 69 

secret forces of electricity, and applied them to all 
the varied lines of trade, and put them into the most 
willing bondage. How have agriculture, mining, 
mechanics, invention, reached their exalted and 
wondrous level ? Only through the invincible cour- 
age of such men as Franklin, Morse, Fulton, and 
Fields. 

So in war. If conquests have been made and 
great issues determined for humanity, it was be- 
cause brave men took the sword of self-defense and 
went to battle. 

If new countries have been found, great re- 
sources developed, commerce advanced, or educa- 
tion favored, it was because some one was not 
scared by real or imaginary trifles. Who shall tell 
what hardships have been endured, what fortunes 
spent, what lives sacrificed, to give us the ordinary 
comforts of to-day? The truth is, we are rowing 
against the tide, and the winds are ofttimes contrary. 

What wonder, then, that in life's great practical 
Christian battle, success hinges upon resolute cour- 
age? If it is to be a hand-to-hand fight, let it be 
so. If a fight with physical pain, mental anxiety, 
social bereavements, domestic grief; if the battle 
still is to go forward with doubts, infirmities, weak- 
nesses, and dying, — then let us not go forth except 
we are fully equipped. 



70 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

Spiritual power, gotten and developed by com- 
munion with God, is the only breakwater that can 
be raised to save men from the flood-tides of evil 
which are continuously dashing upon the shore of 
our little life. 

Who are the victorious men of history or of the 
present? Are they the men who were afraid to 
venture for the truth and God — those who hesitate, 
and doubt, and refuse to do until the battle is over ? 
Not so. 

What cowardly times are these upon which we 
have fallen ! Men in the pulpits, men in the edito- 
rial chairs, men in the professions and in business, 
with the padlock upon their lips, and the key 
thrown into the deep ! Witness the extraordinary 
attitude of many about the rum-trade, the Jesuitical 
movements in modern life, the law of the Sabbath, 
the sacredness of the marriage covenant ! 

Where would the Reformation have been driven 
if the men of that day had allowed themselves to 
have been muzzled, or if they would have crouched, 
like menials, at the feet of the dominant sentiment? 
Out with the notion that good men must wait for 
public sentiment, and then they may act ! Senti- 
ment must be made, and good men must make it — 
make it, too, in the interest of righteousness, so- 
briety, honesty, and truth. 



ESSENTIALS. 71 

The young people of the Christian Churches are 
honored by tremendous responsibilities in all the 
lines of moral reform. The tides of evil which, for 
a generation, have swept in upon us from other 
lands, will demand not only enlightened action, 
but the most positive and determined command of 
the situation. The leagues and brotherhoods, the 
lodges and clubs, do not have in them the elemental 
forces to grapple with these great questions. The 
Church of Jesus Christ, in her awakened purposes 
and her holy ministries, is the only salvation for the 
mixed populations which have congregated upon 
these shores. There is no escape from the impend- 
ing calamities of the social and political fabric of 
the young Republic but in the prompt, vigorous, 
and earnest equipment of those who shall soon be 
face to face with the greatest problems which were 
ever thrust upon a free and enlightened people. 

PART SECOND— CONSECRATED ENTHUSIASM. 

There is all the difference imaginable between a 
cold, passive, calculating attitude toward a good 
cause, and a warm, glowing, intense movement. 
It is equal to the difference between an old, water- 
soaked log in the fire-place, and the bright, cheery, 
crackling fire, that makes everybody glad who gets 
near to it. 



72 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

Fanaticism is a wild, wholesale, extravagant notion 
in things leading to dangerous delusions ; enthusiasm 
is enkindled and kindling fervor of soul. It is found 
in the heart of the man where a subject has com- 
plete possession of the mind. In old mythological 
times it was being inspired by the gods. It is 
stretching one's self in nobility of desire, broad- 
ening out into unwonted and positive purposes. 
It has taken hold of all kinds of men in all ages of 
the world, and molded their characters and shaped 
their destiny. With men like Charles Sumner and 
Wilberforce and Garrison, it was shown in their im- 
passioned utterances and heroic efforts for making 
men free ; with Florence Nightingale it was the sweet 
ministries to the sick and the establishment of the 
hospital; with Michael Angelo it was investing with 
life the pencil and brush, and putting upon canvas 
the wonderful scenes of Bible history and Christian 
endeavor; with the Man of Nazareth it was an un- 
dying passion for the salvation of sinful men. 

There is a sliding scale in Christian experience 
and in Christian effort. Some are committed to God 
in a true evangelical sense, whilst others are wholly 
the Iyord's'people. 

The human body has always been an incum- 
brance to the growth of religion in the soul; and, 



ESSENTIALS. 73 

because of this, some of the old scholars believed 
that sin was located in the flesh. 

Sin is a fire ! And so the fire is kindled in the 
bodily appetites and passions. The fuel is light and 
dry, and burns with great rapidity, and many are 
consumed. 

Sin is a tyrant ! This all-conquering master uses 
the members of the body as weapons to fight against 
the sovereignty of Almighty God. He must be 
watched. 

It is manifestly the right of every man, by nature, 
to eat ; and the Creator has marvelously provided for 
the appetite in this particular. There is an infinite 
variety in the markets, the orchards, the rivers, the 
fields ; but to become a slave to the appetite is sin. 
To gluttonize the body, and lead a life of voluptuous- 
ness, is a crime against nature. 

It is proper that men should quench the thirst, 
and the Almighty has distilled upon every hill-side a 
beverage for all, wholesome and agreeable ; but to 
poison the muscles of the throat and stomach by the 
use of intoxicating liquor dishonors manhood and 
offends the Creator. 

Making money is legitimate; but it isnot right to 
squander it, hoard it, or use it upon our lusts. 

Society is a blessing ; but it was certainly not the 
7 



74 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

intention in our creation that men and women should 
spend the hours of the night in revelry and dancing. 

The tongue is a useful member, but how it is 
abused ! Blasphemy, falsehood, lying, bitterness, un- 
charitable and unprofitable conversation, make up the 
measure of many hours. 

The body, therefore, is subject to false appetites — 
subject to violent temptations. The law of the body 
is threefold — chastity, temperance, prohibition. 
Chastity in all things, temperance in things that are 
lawful, prohibition in things that are wrong. Now 
wicked men are restrained by the law of the land ; 
but those who follow Bible teaching find that it is to 
be a voluntary surrender to these three virtues. We 
are to keep the body in subjection. This is the rule 
of the divine effort in our behalf. If the beginning 
of a sin lies in the conception, the source of concep- 
tion must feel the touch of a holy consecration. If 
the consent of the will is what leads to guilt, to get 
the power to conform the will to the divine instincts 
of right-doing is the one work of the life. This is con- 
secration to God divested of all cant, removed from 
all mystery, and destitute of all superstition. 

And no sooner do we reach this point in our ex- 
perience than all our moral desires begin to inau- 
gurate ways and means for our real and permanent 
happiness and for the happiness of others. Our de- 



ESSENTIALS. 75 

sire for society changes at once. We want to recog- 
nize and appreciate the intellectual and spiritual in 
others ; the honesty, integrity, and force of character 
in others. 

Our desires for worldly amusements change. All 
rational pleasures are a delight ; all irrational pleas- 
ures we despise. 

Our tastes and moral feelings undergo a change. 
Committed to that which is pure and beautiful and 
good, our hopes and joys and purposes are so modi- 
fied and chastened that we not only seek the good of 
others, but their advancement becomes a constant 
pleasure and there is not a member of the body but 
feels the glow of a new inspiration when the heart is 
moved to truth and duty. 

The eye studies with marvelous delight the Maker 
of all things in all the places where he is pleased to 
make himself known . Is it the natural world ? Nature 
is a thousand fold more beautiful than it was under 
the old regime. Its sublime and golden beauties 
gleam and dance and shine until the soul is enam- 
ored, not perchance so much with the things them- 
selves, but with the wisdom, purpose, and power of the 
Being who called them into existence. The flowers 
are not only fragrant and beautiful, but the great 
hand of God is back of them. The changing forests, 
from nakedness to green and from green to the un- 



76 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

rivaled beauties of autumn, are detected as part of 
that same handiwork, and the heavens are full of har- 
mony because the Almighty holds his purposes in 
check or loosens his hold at pleasure. 

Nay, the eye goes far beyond this. It fixes itself 
upon the supernatural in the history of nations. It 
sees the guiding, ruling, designing hand of the Gov- 
ernor of Nations. It sees the downfall of empires, 
cities, and kingdoms, and the rise of others, and all 
for a purpose. The Christian reader of history pierces 
the secrets of literature, and reads between the lines 
the destinies which are in store for the nations that 
forget God. He determines with certainty the wrath 
and goodness of God displayed in the ratio of dis- 
loyalty and obedience to the divine law. Before this 
reader's watchful gaze are the splendid characters of 
history, their faith in God, their faith in his provi- 
dence, their virtue, their self-denial, their love of 
liberty, their sense of justice, their heroism, their 
devotion to principles which are just and true. Amid 
the rubbish of the centuries he notes the gracious 
principles that have been thriving by persecution, 
molding the ages in spite of prejudice, standing 
the tests of all time, and sure to win upon every 
legitimate battle-field upon this planet. 

And what about the tongue? It also receives a 
holy baptism. It is not filled with blessing and 



ESSENTIALS. 77 

cursing, but with blessing. It delights itself in 
charity. It holds in reserve its biased judgments. 
In the lips of such a man, character and life and con- 
duct receive an impartial rendering. The same is 
true of the ''ear." It does not care to listen to the 
gossip of the hour. It does not feast upon and 
thrive by the sensations of the day. It is rather 
tuned to all the melodies of fair speech. It delights 
in the pleasures of social fellowship, in Christian 
song. The cry of distress is not ungrateful, for it 
gives heed to that bitter cry. Even the voice of the 
heathen, low and faint as it is, from the distant 
points of the compass — the cry of the heathen will 
bring out the alms and gifts which shall become a 
memorial before the Lord. 

The " feet " will be wholly consecrated. Swift 
in deeds of love and tenderness and charity, the foot- 
prints will ever be covered, lest the praise to man 
shall outweigh the honor due to the lover of human 
souls. 

This spirit of consecration includes all — time, 
talents, service, all. It is the measure of a true act, 
and this whole subject gets additional7power when 
we consider how we get into possession of these 
faculties of being. They are gifts of the Creator. 
"In him we live and move." It gets still greater 
force when we remember to what base and abomina- 



78 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

ble purposes these faculties may be put — to what 
base and abominable purposes they are already put 
by many who started fairly in the race of life. The 
thread of destiny gets its coloring in the escape of 
the days by our own thought. And so, as we are 
hastening to the hour of the final decision, it is well 
to have in mind the make-up of the driving shuttle 
in the loom of our life. 

The conditions of this enlarged living are simple 
but imperative. Amongst the old orthodox Jews 
of Europe the Day of Atonement is strictly observed. 
It is the most solemn holiday of that very interest- 
ing people. The soul must oe afflicted; the fast 
must be observed ; the work must be wholly sus- 
pended. The dreadful recollection of their event- 
ful history troops through the brain of every thought- 
ful reader of Old Testament story. They know that 
the golden age of their people has passed away; 
that the luster has been tarnished and the fine gold 
gotten dim. Through the mind passes the recol- 
lection of the ancient covenant made with the father 
of the race, Abraham — renewed to Isaac, and not re- 
called from Jacob. The thought of their present 
disquieted and scattered condition, without a nation- 
ality, a flag, or a Messiah, comes to them with a mys- 
terious and supernatural dread. Before three stars 
appear in the evening sky of the Day of the Atone- 



ESSENTIALS. 79 

ment these believers in the one God — each one — 
whether in country sparse or city full, goes to his 
fellow Jew and makes every wrong thing right. 
He will not carry his heart-burnings and corroding 
grudges across the threshold of the New. The New 
Year must begin aright. This spirit has something 
of the practical about it. It is an honest pur- 
pose at forgiveness and conciliation upon the only 
true basis. 

The Supreme Teacher of humanity said that in 
presenting our gift upon the altar of sacrifice we 
must leave it for a time, and go and be reconciled 
with our brother. How often it is that we stand in 
God's way for making us better! He would make 
us better if we would make ourselves better. 

Another condition equally important is that of 
submitting ourselves wholly to the will of God in 
the matter of our consecration. God must not be to 
us that awful, rigorous, and majestic Being known to 
the Hebrew people simply as the God of Sinai, the 
Unfathomable Abyss, the Unapproachable Height, the 
Inflexible Blohim. To all who deny the truth, and 
willingly put away the Savior of men to follow the 
devices of the Evil One, this is, indeed, God's 
character. 

But to those who come to the Mediator, he is the 
Father of Mercies, the God of Pardon, the Source 



80 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

of Blessing. God's great promise to the world is the 
Christ. He is the image of the Holy Father ; he is 
the expressed will and promise of God. At his feet 
we forget our fears ; our trembling is changed into 
laughter, and our prayers translated into the most 
delightful praise. The old Indian got the idea after 
a time. When told to bring all to Christ, he inter- 
preted it literally, and brought his bow, his quiver 
filled with arrows, his game just brought from the 
chase, his canoe, his wampum, his wigwam, his 
squaw and pappoose, and finally himself, saying: 
" And take poor Indian, too." This surrendering 
is both easy and difficult. Easy when the " will " is 
gained over; hard in getting the consent. 

The unique inscription on the Roman coin in 
the days of Augustus Caesar tells the story : Upon 
one side the picture of a young heifer, standing be- 
tween the butcher's-block and a yoke, the inscription 
underneath reading, " Ready for Either." To labor 
or suffer is the young Christian's right. 

This surrender should be followed with a firm 
belief that our Heavenly Father fully and freely ac- 
cepts us ; accepts us now ; fully accepts us in this 
present time, Jesus becoming our Savior once and 
forever. The submission and the blessing are joined. 
That spiritual act of the soul produces its accom- 
panying sensation. This spiritual sensation leaves 



ESSENTIALS. 8 1 

an abiding testimony, and the consciousness of being 
wholly the Lord's stays when other things depart. 

A life thus surrendered is raised above the pos- 
sibility of failure. In a modified sense, it is the life 
of the Master repeating itself. It has in it an aim. 
To have no goal ; to seek not the highest things ; 
to not know what to do, — all this is fatal. 

But it is not essential that one should be promi- 
nent in order to have such a life. Quietness, mod- 
esty, merit, a little place where we may toil and 
suffer, — this is enough. How blessed the thought 
that in the sphere of our humble but prayerful life 
we may rest upon the promise of the Divine assur- 
ance of full acceptance ! 

PART THIRD-MONEY. 

- The root-word for generosity is high-born — 
born of noble purpose. It means that which has 
nothing to do with meanness. A generous man, 
therefore, is one who gives with a magnanimous 
spirit. This does not necessarily mean large giving. 
It means giving in a large way; giving with an 
earnest, loving, enthusiastic spirit. A rich man may 
give largely in a mean and niggardly way. A poor 
man may give little in a contemptuous spirit. It is 
the motive and the spirit which determine the char- 
acter of the gift. The amount of our giving is based 



82 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

upon the proposition, " As God has prospered." 
How equitable is God ! How perfectly just ! He ex- 
acts of no man that which he does not have. He calls 
for a certain percentage upon our income. He does not 
go into details exactly, but states a great principle, 
and throws the whole matter back upon the bounty 
which he has conferred upon each one of us. 

It will not do for a man to say that he will not 
give to the cause of God " until I have a living for 
myself and my family." The matter of how much a 
man ought to spend upon his family and upon him- 
self would then rest upon every man's individual 
opinion. But the views of many men are extrava- 
gant, luxurious living, pampering self, and allowing 
the details of living full license, will curb and inter- 
fere with the man's opinions as to the necessities of 
the work of God. 

In this grasping, money-loving age, there is no 
telling where extravagances will stop. There must 
be a truce called. 

Now, every honest man deserves a living. We 
were not born into this world of plenty to starve 
to death, and no one need starve to death. All may 
have a competency if they will manage their affairs 
with discretion and do not forget God. 

Nor will it do to say that I can not give until all 
my debts are paid. We must take the cause of God 



ESSENTIALS. 83 

into copartnership with our business. The in- 
ventor) 7 of things to be maintained must have regis- 
tered the great agencies which lie at the bottom of 
moral and social reforms. The average man must 
say, so much for rent, so much for the market, so 
much for education, so much for the cause of God. 
And in making the inventory it is essential that we 
give the gospel its true estimate. We are to mark 
our real indebtedness to it. We must say, How 
much is Christianity worth to me ? Is it of any avail 
that my lot is thrown in the land where the Bible is 
an open book and written in my own language ? Does 
it matter to me that its saving truths have saluted 
my bewildered ears, and touched my conscience, and 
made a man of me ? Is it anything that I may rear 
my children in the presence of the most intelligent 
and gracious surroundings and give them the 
brilliant chances of Christian citizenship and free- 
dom of conscience ? Can I full} 7 appreciate the bless- 
ings of pardoned sins, acceptance with Heaven,- and 
the joys of Christian fellowship, where heart beats 
to heart and the tenderest ministries make up the 
sum of all the hours? How much is it worth to me 
to triumph by grace, to sing amidst my sorrows, to 
have a well-grounded hope of immortality ? 

Then, we must consider what the consequences 
would be should the gospel be blotted out of exist- 



84 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

ence, all the churches burned into ashes, all the 
ministers of the gospel going into secular employ- 
ments, all the religious presses of the land dedicated 
to evil, — none to preach the truth, none to admin- 
ister the holy sacraments, none to pray for the sick, 
or cheer the dying, or bury the dead. What if all 
Sunday-school instruction were abolished, all meet- 
ings for prayer discontinued, all revivals oblit- 
erated? Then human nature would indeed run 
riot; then the rum-fiend would double its victims, 
licentiousness would go unrestrained, and all forms 
of vice be fat and flourishing. 

For the moral weight of Christianity is marvel- 
ous. It is more powerful than courts and prisons. 
The absolutely incorrigible must be thrust behind 
bolts and bars, 'tis true; but remove the moral force 
of the gospel, dry up the fountains of truth in the 
Church, let public opinion get strongly corrupted, 
and society can not exist. 

It is no holiday affair, then, to turn back the 
tides of evil—no holiday affair to overthrow the false 
opinions of men and the blunders about religion, 
which they have evolved from their fertile but 
wicked brains. It takes a full combination of all 
the forces of truth and righteousness, a concentra- 
tion of effort, a tremendous upheaval of all right 
impulses. 



ESSENT/ALS. 85 

What millions of money are spent every year 
by us in the deadly work of enslaving men in 
strong drink! What millions to keep the American 
people puffing away at their pipes, and making pub- 
lic places foul by their constant spitting of tobacco! 
This terrific waste that goes forward should not 
only alarm us, but make us resolve to retrench and 
appropriate the same to benevolent purposes. 

Then, there is the crying sin of keeping up ap- 
pearances — that unmeasured cringing to fashion, 
that unstinted use of money in pleasure-seeking by 
rail. It must stop somewhere and some day. Re- 
trenching at the house of the Lord will work mis- 
chief. Every lawful claim Christianity makes upon 
us we should heed with honor and becoming fidel- 
ity. A young man with a moderate salary, by using 
method, may be able to surprise himself by the ag- 
gregation of his gifts. It is not what I would do if 
thus and so happened, but what I will do with my 
present surroundings and in my present circum- 
stances. To take a sharpened lead-pencil and note 
the income of a week, and divide it by ten, and ap- 
propriate that tenth to the cause of truth and hu- 
manity, takes courage and grace; but it altogether 
pays. 



86 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

PART FOURTH— THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

The Holy Spirit is an almighty and self-deter- 
mining personality. He is a potent factor in the 
matter of man's salvation. In order to fill up the 
measure of our power, it is necessary that we should 
have clear and well-defined views of this divine 
agency. We must be able to say that our hope 
is not a mental delusion. Nor shall we live in a 
state of presumption, or give undue liberty to con- 
science. 

The very nature of the work wrought upon our 
natures, fixes a point from which we may move out 
and onward. In the old English times it was cus- 
tomary, in buying a piece of ground, that the seller 
would, upon the closing of the bargain, throw a 
piece of turf into the hat of the buyer, as a pledge 
of sincerity in the transaction ; or in buying a house, 
a little part of the thatched roof passed from one to 
another. The same thought is found in the trans- 
actions of the present day in giving and taking 
earnest money. 

When the work of regeneration goes forward in 
the soul the transaction is certified to. In going 
from the dark cell of a prison out into the pure sun- 
light, a change occurs upon the optic nerve; and it 
would be worse than folly to say to one who is in 



ESSENTIALS. 87 

the dungeon, "Just believe, and you are in the sun- 
light;" or to one who is under the light of the broad, 
open day, "You are yet in the darkness." So the 
change wrought upon our natures is a translation 
from darkness into light. 

A slave is conscious of the difference between a 
crust of bread, the lash of an overseer, and the op- 
pression of his every-day life — between that and the 
blessings of freedom. 

But this personality is able to dominate the 
whole spiritual life, and make it fruitful in all man- 
ner of holy affections and deeds of honor. He can 
control our every desire, shape our every purpose, 
and regulate our every aspiration. The unques- 
tioned condition is that in which there is a daily 
illumination and sanctification of the inner powers. 

Without this indwelling, human plans are com- 
paratively worthless and human aspirations utterly 
vain. 

It is the one healthful, helpful force needed by 
the world this day: Power — the power of the 
Spirit. 

In one way or another all men wish for power ; 
and they indeed have it, in some one of its varied 
forms. 

In mechanics, power is said to be the force that 
drives matter. In law, it is the authority one 



88 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

person gives to another to act for him in matters 
involving great responsibilities — the power of 
attorney. 

In optics, it is the capabilities of a lens to see 
what otherwise would be hidden. 

Gravitation, heat, light, magnetism — all are ex- 
ponents of power. 

In intellectual processes it is eloquence— the art 
of persuasion. 

But all these are the vulgar forms of power, 
when contrasted with that spiritual force begotten 
of the Holy Spirit, drawing us toward Calvary, giv- 
ing to the soul a new vision, warming the affectional 
nature, illuminating the understanding, and per- 
suading us of the things which lie beyond the pres- 
ent scenes. 

The picture of Worship in the Temple of Jeru- 
salem would be worthy of an artist's pencil. Mul- 
titudes are marching into the holy courts, with 
songs and instruments of music. The priests, clad 
in sacred garments, attend to the required duties. 
Sacrifices are smoking upon the altar; censers are 
swung and barley-loaves are waved; the people 
pour their gold and silver into the treasury-basin ; 
the Hillel is chanted amid the responses of the 
people. But hark ! It is a voice out of the Un- 
seen: "I delight not in the blood of your sacri- 



ESSENTIALS. 89 

fices. When you spread your hands, I will hide 
my eyes." 

What does it mean? 

There is another scene ! It is in an upper 
room. A few men and women of prayer are gath- 
ered, all of whom have been walking amid the 
shadows. Their Leader has been removed from 
them. He parted with them, and passed into the 
heavenly places. These wait according to the con- 
ditions. The days pass by, but no answer to their 
prayer that has in it full satisfaction. The promise 
is ripe, though, and their faith has climbed up 
to the highest rung of spiritual desire. A sound ! 
It is as the rushing of the wind. It fills the house. 
It fills the heart. Tongues of fire sit upon each. 
Their mouths are full of wisdom and holy joy; 
and so, with heroic purposes beating high, they 
go forth to duty. 

There is no substitute for power such as this. 
Organize as we may, elect officers and issue plans 
and adopt methods, we shall be defeated in the end, 
unless the soul is baptized with spiritual power. It 
is not the result of our intuitions, nor of our intel- 
lectual processes, nor of the position we may be 
holding in society, nor abundance of means, nor yet 
the exhilaration due to a fine flow of spirits or of 

extraordinary health. 

8 



90 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

It is that supernatural, divine, regnant influence 
falling upon us by prayer, filling the soul with light 
and love and peace and joy. It is the highest type 
of power known to men, and may be had by asking 
and waiting. 



91 






Chapter Sixth. 

THE HIGH-WATER MARK. 

THERE are mountain ranges that are unique. 
They look as if nature had been in a play- 
ful mood the day they were created. There are 
I all kinds of ridges and unnatural summits, and 
1 the most grotesque shapes, appearing hither and 
yon. Take that solitary peak bathing itself in 
the sunlight. View it as the air is rent by storm, 
as the thunders peal and break about its crown, or 
the lightnings gleam and flash and burn at its base. 
See it at the midnight hour, when the harvest moon 
is looking down upon it with gracious beams. 
Whenever or by whomsoever seen, it is a bold, 
shaggy, majestic masterpiece out of God's great 
workshop. Is it to teach us the power of individ- 
uality — to teach how the life of one good man may 
shoot up into acknowledged sublimity, even above 
the life of his fellows ? 

It is the planet Venus that is seen the summer 

93 



94 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

long in the evening sky — the brightest of the stars ; 
and whether chasing the sun as an evening star, or 
leading him in his circuit through the heavens as 
the star of the morning, it is the same fascinating 
sight. Does it teach that, in the galaxy of character, 
it is the life of the Christian woman that shines with 
greatest brilliancy, and all because her circuit brings 
her nearest to the Sun of Righteousness? 

The perfection of character is bound up in a 
monosyllable. I^ove is the dominating force that 
wakes into perpetual instinct the highest possibili- 
ties of our being. There must be purity in the brain, 
where the thoughts lie; purity in the "will," where 
the decisions lie ; purity in the imagination, where 
the pictures are made; purity in the heart, where 
the emotions rule. It is impossible intellectually to 
apprehend God and indulge in sin, and have proper 
expectations of the future. This is opening the 
wicket, to be followed all too soon by the flood-gates 
themselves. 

Absolute perfection is an unknown factor among 
men. The works of nature are complete, and can 
put on no higher forms of beauty or utility. No 
touches of an artist's pencil can improve the out- 
lines of an American landscape, the animated scenes 
of a tropical forest, or a sunset amid the Alleghanies. 
No skill of an architect can draft more exquisite 



THE HIGH-WATER MARK. 95 

lines than the arch of a rainbow, the compass of the 
sea, or the circle of the heavens. No naturalist can 
imagine anything more complete or more adapted 
to its use than the wing of a bird, the web of a 
spider, or the sting of an insect. BufTon, the cele- 
brated unbeliever, had to reverse his early decision 
that the Almighty made a mistake when he created 
the Cross-bill, because its bill was so crooked. 
When he found out that it lived on pine cones, he 
said the bill is just adapted to its use. Wild beasts 
make their lairs in the mountain fastnesses; the 
fowls of mid-air or mid-ocean are perfect in their 
make-up, and in harmon3^ with their creation. The 
one solitary, inharmonious thing in the world is 
man. The moment you get into the region where 
he breathes and suffers, you find imperfection. 
There are no absolutely perfect men amongst us. 
And yet, amid this demoralization and defeat, there 
is somewhat of us that may be perfect — the heart 
enswathed in love, the affections turned full-flood 
upon the true and the good, the soul enamored of 
the Savior and crowned with a passion for the truth. 
How beautiful a figure of the Creator's character 
is the sun — self-luminous, the center of attraction, 
the ultimate source of beauty and power in the 
vegetable and animal world; its shining a continu- 
ous and healthful movement, and for all men, and 



9& BEYOND THE RUTS. 

on forever! Its manifestations are as diversified as 
the waves of the sea, and boundless as the compass 
of the sky. There is n't an organ of sense in the 
human body but responds to the truth that love is 
the regnant force in God's character. The eye, the 
ear, the nerves, the brain, — we call them all to wit- 
ness. There is n't a blade of grass, or bursting bud, 
or fruitful tree, but what bespeaks his fidelity and 
fatherhood. There is n't an event in history which 
does not blend in its divine overruling to foreshadow 
man's good. The atonement is infinite love, labor- 
ing to reveal itself, and agonizing to utter its fullest 
wishes — birth-throes, so to speak, bringing forth 
supreme creations. 

This divine principle of love finds a wide sphere 
for growth and exercise in the human heart. We 
can not be pure and good by choice, or resolution, 
or simple pledges. We may help up our life some- 
what, but can not get free from envy and lust and 
hate. Iyove is an impartation. It is from above. 
Human affections are thrust upon things that are 
low-bred and mean and that perish in their use. It is 
the love of money, the love of power, the love of 
appetite, that confront us at every step in life. An 
idol is enthroned in the heart, and there is no place 
for God. But the heart, like nature, abhors a vacuum ; 
and so, when you would teach men not to love the 



THE HIGH-WATER MARK. 97 

world and give them a sublime object upon which to 
place their affections, the greater power drives out 
the lesser. 

Love is leaven. It is the leaven of the God- 
head committed to the meal of the human spirit, by 
which the whole nature is leavened. 

Love is the "good seed." It is the good seed of 
the kingdom planted in the heart, out of which 
shall spring the royal harvests of to-morrow. 

And the thing is about as mysterious as both 
the leaven and the seed. No one can explain that 
subtle force in a mother's heart for her child. She 
will endure any fatigue, any trial and affliction, that 
her child may be helped. So it is that no one who 
is truly born of God can put his feelings into lan- 
guage. The mention of the Savior's name to such 
an one is as hone}* upon the lips. The inbreathing 
of his love is as the music of the skies. Like the 
flower turning toward the sun, the soul that dwells 
in love looks up into the face of the Hoi)* Father 
with inexplainable glances. 

How strange, moreover, and yet how true, that 
this principle of love in the heart becomes the 
standard by which to test all other virtues ! 

Gold is the standard in the commercial world. 
It regulates values. So when love rules the heart, 
love rules the hour. Everything is pleasant and 



98 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

agreeable when love drives the chariot-wheels. Dif- 
ficulties vanish, slights are unnoticed, injuries are 
forgiven, everything moves well at home or abroad. 
When love rules the hour, the streams of holy char- 
ity flow out and onward without stint. Duty is no 
yoke, prayer is a relish, the ministries of song and 
experience are full of harmony and good cheer. 
But when the heart gets out of tune, the devil of 
discord gets upon the throne. Love is the antidote 
to unbelief. It is the harbinger of peace, and hope, 
and long-suffering. If we have n't much intelli- 
gence, we yet may love; if no position of honor, we 
yet can love ; if no money, if we have to suffer, 
still we may love. Venturing upon the atonement, 
we sit at Jesus' feet and hear his tender words of 
compassion and grace. 

And, best of all, this love is capable of the 
highest degree of development. It may be per- 
fected in us. To know more of the Savior is to 
love him better. To study him daily is to adore 
him daity. Follow him to the solitudes of the 
mountain, his prayers will move you to intense de- 
votion. Follow him up the rugged way to Calvary, 
you sink into nothingness. Go out to Olivet, and 
become victorious over your inner self. He can 
satisfy every desire. He can unlock with his mystic 
keys every secret chamber of the soul, and enthrone 



THE HIGH-WATER MARK. 99 

himself everywhere. With him in command, there 
need be no melancholy awakenings, no fearful ap- 
prehensions. When he possesses us entire, doubt 
is removed; faith becomes as steady as is the needle 
to the pole; future calculations about life are all sub- 
ject to his glorious enfoldings; joy is not now a 
spasm, and peace has all the smoothness of an un- 
ruffled lake. 

We all need to plunge into this open sea. We 
need to tarry at the throne until the power comes 
down; to stay with the sacrifice until the fire burns, 
the sacrifice is consumed, and we are made every 
whit whole. With the deep things of the Book at 
hand, it is no time for definitions about the higher 
experiences, no time for controversy; but the ever- 
ready spirit which says every hour, " I can not 
move from the cross" — this creates a paralysis of 
expanding joys. 

And, withal, it is the only abiding portion we 
can have in the present. It stays with us when 
other things depart — when they depart to come 
back again, when they depart to stay from us for- 
ever. It stays when all else decays and dies. Our 
present life has in it the elements of deca}'. Things 
fluctuate, and disappear, and perish. Who of us 
need to be put upon the rack of disappointed hopes ? 
The tenderest feelings of the heart need not be 



ioo BEYOND THE RUTS. 

crucified afresh at the thought of the fading beauty 
of mother's cheek, or that a friendship cemented by 
years of faithful companionship should have been 
ruthlessly broken in a single night. Nay! Our 
hopes are like the sunbeams playing hide-and-seek 
with the clouds of the morning. Now they brighten 
things all about, and one imagines that things will 
get clear again ; but they do not abide. 

Our joys are as life-boats let down from the ves- 
sel to help the struggling and shipwrecked feelings 
of the soul — instruments, agencies. 

But love — love for Christ, love for his holy name, 
love for his Sabbath, and Word, and people, and 
cause — love is the divinest thing amongst us, and 
can not escape whilst at the cross. 

It is the calm, blessed sunshine itself, in which 
the soul bathes until it is glorified. It is the tem- 
pest-tossed soul climbing up into the ship, and hail- 
ing its companions as one back from the dead. Its 
companionships are of the more positive types. It 
is the most fascinating venture the regenerated 
spirit is permitted to make. 



on« fljBrB arE, grsafer fFratt rom £t)£t 



A 



GIpapter Seventh, 



FRAIL BUT CAPABLE. 



TYPICAL men are worthy of attention. 
They stand out with decided prominence 
as molders of society. The Joseph of Genesis, 
in his home-life or after brilliant career, has 
some distinctive features that American youth 




may profitably study in imitation. Thoroughly 
enshrined in the affections of his father, he is thrust 
into all the perils of Egyptian life. His father has 
often been blamed for his special love ; but what are 
you going to do with merit when } t ou find it?. As 
long as integrity, obedience, and devotion to truth 
stand over against their opposites, it is right to rec- 
ognize or to despise. Joseph condemned wrong- 
doing. Has he been stigmatized as a tale-bearer in 
the matter of reporting the doings of his own breth- 
ren? Upon the other hand, when the interests of 
others are jeopardized through injustice, malice, or 
deceit of a second party, it is criminal to be silent. 

Two clerks are in the same store. The one is 

103 



104 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

strictly honest, the other is pilfering daily. Should 
the honest clerk conceal the thievings of his com- 
rade from the employer he is particeps criminis. 

A man is bent upon committing a murder. He 
who is patent to that secret is guilty of the blood 
of his fellow unless he discloses the whole to the 
party concerned. What was anger or revenge in 
the presence of duty to this young man, who was 
sworn to the strictest integrity? His brothers were 
rilled with hatred, ridiculed his manner of life, and 
refused to treat him with the Eastern courtesies. 
When bad men despise the good simply because 
they are good, it is no discredit. There are some 
things in this world worse than the curses of un- 
principled men. One of these is to be willing to 
wink at evil. Whatever the wickedness was, Joseph 
refused to join hands with it, and he would n't keep 
quiet about it. He lost the friendship of some, but 
got into harmony with a beautiful conscience. 

How much better is it to come out squarely and 
above-board, when invited to beer, and say, "I do 
not drink, and I am opposed to strong drink," than 
to answer, "I'll not take anything to-day!" What 
incomparable words are those which say, when in- 
vited to the card- table and the dance, " I am op- 
posed to card-playing and dancing," than to say, 



FRAIL BUT CAPABLE. 105 

"I'll look on whilst you enjoy yourselves!" Tar- 
rying, debating, hesitating, — these are the harbingers 
of a fall. Society to-day needs the integrity that 
can withstand the persuasions of evil, resist the 
shafts of satire — men who can say no when no is 
the exact word to say. How often are correct prin- 
ciples and the force of good habits flung to the 
winds under the pressure of an insinuating temp- 
tation ! 

Far be it from these simple pages to teach a piety 
that is a sickly, flabby, sentimental exotic of the 
hot-house In humble and the more refined walks 
of life are needed those who will not fill their pock- 
ets with ill-gotten gains, take bribes, pervert judg- 
ment, and barter away principles which must lie at 
the root of all manly effort. 

And how splendidly this young man held him- 
self subject to the restraints of legitimate authority! 
God intimated that he had something for him to do 
in the world beyond the routine of the average life. 
He always lays tribute upon merit. The dramatic 
element in the dreams begin to unfold themselves. 
They are the heralds of the future. The submis- 
sion of the sheaves of barley and the obeisance of 
the starry heavens are avant-couriers to a prospect- 
ive life of devotion. The rebuke of the home au- 



106 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

thority does not disturb the equilibrium of one who 
has been chosen, in holy purposes, to help forward 
the cause of right-doing. 

Getting beyond parental authority is steering 
toward a moral Niagara. In the construction of 
character there is nothing quite so fatal as overrid- 
ing legitimate authority. Better suffer being right 
than to make a breach between the soul and the 
sympathies and security resulting from timely 
obedience. This submission in inexperience, this 
yielding to the dictates of age, this walking in the 
line of providential suggestion, is of great moment, 
because it puts one into full sympathy with the au- 
thority of conscience and the teachings of the great 
Book itself. Break with rightful authority, become 
self-willed and heady, the latch is raised of that 
fatal gate which leads out into the enemy's country. 

When Marcus, the Roman general, came back 
from Africa, and took charge of the troops which 
were to be used in conquering Spain, he spent 
months in organizing and inuring them to hard- 
ships. They were sent on wearisome marches ; they 
were sent to dig canals and throw up breastworks. 
The morals of the troops were looked after. They 
were punished for violation of discipline ; they were 
drilled and fired with ambition. Complaints and 
threats from citizens did not make him move. But 



FRAIL BUT CAPABLE. 107 

when he struck, he made havoc amongst the Span- 
ish soldiery. They scaled the ramparts of the 
enemy, and wrenched from them victory after 
victory. 

The drill-masters of self-denial, personal re- 
straints, and submission to the details of early life, 
will only equip the youth of to-day for the great 
battles which must be fought upon American 
shores. 

Having thrown the safeguards about his char- 
acter, Joseph enters the arena of daring, suffering, 
and doing. Does he desire successs ? Success is in 
the brain of all who come to years. When the 
gypsy fortune-teller flatters one with prospective 
riches, distinction, and prosperity, he laughs at the 
superstition ; but quietly it is supposed to be that 
much in one's favor. Good bargains at first, success 
in marriage, and the outlook hopeful, everybody is 
ready to cry, "The tide is turning to flood, and the 
winds are fair!" But after getting a few cable's- 
length from shore, one is willing to believe that the 
dead calm which has settled down upon the sea pre- 
sages a storm. The clouds are full of deceit, and 
the winds are getting contrary. Good wishes and 
the old shoes and rice flung at the bridal party upon 
leaving home for the happy trip, do n't make it all 
right with us. Brilliant movements in society, and 



108 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

the tender of constant congratulations, can not 
answer for character. Joseph had n't got far until 
he became a victim. The hounds of envy and mal- 
ice got upon his track. The wicked felt his supe- 
riority, and could n't brook his presence. 

How often is youth to-day made the victim 
of a slanderous spirit! Motives are impugned, ac- 
tions misrepresented, reputations stabbed. Getting 
ahead better than others, and having a mind that 
knows how to think better than others, are 
sources of envy and hatred. Having more friends 
than another, having a position which pays more 
money than that of another, and with better pros- 
pects, — these are all targets at which an enemy may 
shoot. 

If one has force of character sufficient to prevent 
him associating with tipplers, or Sabbath-breakers, or 
keepers of late hours, whilst these are reasons for 
congratulations upon the part of many, they form a 
ground- work for suspicion, petulancy, and unchar- 
itable remark. Ridicule is a weapon that is easily 
handled. It cuts sharply, and there are few who, 
one time or another, have not felt its keen blade. 
Merit, to be merit, must be tried. The test deter- 
mines the quality of the article. Moral excellence 
ought always to be found in the superlative degree. 
The refiner of gold and silver casts nothing away 



FRAIL BUT CAPABLE. 109 

but the dross. Even the sweepings are of great 
value. So with merit in character. But then it will 
be envied, and envy is a monster. Its feet are cov- 
ered with wool. It can minify human virtues in 
others, and magnify vices. It does not keep a hol- 
iday. In the case of Joseph, it culminated in a con- 
spiracy. The story is familiar. The resentful sneers, 
the plotting against his life, the kidnaping and sale 
into slaver)-, the pocketing of the silver, the croc- 
odile tears, and the bloody clothing in the pres- 
ence of parental grief, are well-known points in the 
history. 

Nowadays, though, the attack is upon character. 
The good name is suspicioned; high and holy inter- 
ests are assailed. The leveling process is instituted. 
None are free from the breath of slander. The 
only rule is to live above suspicion, and be strong 
in conscious worth. 

Then the young are assailed by violent tempta- 
tions. They come unbidden, and in one form or 
another, whether we will or whether we will not. 
Joseph's chastity in Potiphar's house was the test 
of his fidelity in virtue. Notwithstanding a long 
imprisonment, there is no stain upon his character. 
You can not picture him as a lover of intoxicants, 
as delighting in the gambling-room, or as a liber- 
tine. You in voluntary associate him with purity, 



no BEYOND THE RUTS. 

sobriety, honesty, and truth. How bold are the 
temptations in these modern times! City-life and 
town-life are filled with fascinating ways. There is 
only one door of escape; there is only one word 
that is worthy to be mentioned in such a presence ; 
that word is flight. No matter what be the tempta- 
tion, nor yet by whom presented, or what the tem- 
porary pleasure involved, to tarry is to fall. A sud- 
den and precipitous flight is the only safety. 

To walk upon the edge of a slumbering volcano 
and pitch one's tent, is to be swallowed up when it 
opens its angry mouth. To turn the head of the 
boat in the direction of the suspension bridge, and 
to pull the oars, is to plunge into the seething gulf 
below, and be carried over the rapids. 

In each and every case, to tarry and debate is 
fool-hardiness, and the after-word of pity is the 
winding-sheet of a wrecked character. Here is the 
backbone of character. 

Then, there are the perils arising from ingrati- 
tude. A picture: Two men are in prison. They 
are both men of rank. At least they have been 
serving at an Oriental court. One is the royal cook, 
the other the royal cup-bearer. There is also a 
third man in the cell. One man dreamed. Three 
bunches of grapes are seen, out of which is ex- 
pressed a delicious drink for the king. The other 



FRAIL B UT CAPABLE. 1 1 1 

dreamed three basketfuls of bread. As they are 
being carried to the king's table, a flock of birds 
swoop down and devour them. The third party is 
the interpreter of the dreams. "The baker will be 
hanged; the butler will escape. When you are 
released and get back into your place, remember 
me. Remember that I am falsely accused and un- 
justly imprisoned." But the butler was an ingrate, 
and so the imprisonment continued two full years 
longer. 

Ingratitude is still alive. Thankless children 
turn the heel upon their aged parents; thankless 
creditors curse the men who befriended them ; cap- 
tious, critical cynics delight in passing over in 
silence things that are really meritorious. Whilst 
disinterestedness is not wholly a thing of the past, 
it is not alwaj's well to build upon the man who 
smiles so graciously upon you. We must learn to 
read character. The judgment must be used intel- 
ligently. The true must be courted and trusted, 
and, though sometimes deceived, we must not get 
cold toward true people, but trust them and appre- 
ciate their smallest acts if the underlying motive be 
that of sincerity. 

What shall be the outcome of all this ? All mali- 
cious intentions, all the deceit and treachery of cir- 
cumstances, shall be turned into favor as such a 



H2 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

character passes under the review of Heaven and 
becomes a subject of the divine superintendency and 
blessing. This supernatural interposition, this over- 
ruling of the evils of men and society, constitute the 
rugged, granite foundations of hope. John I, of 
England, at the head of a great nation, but a liber- 
tine, a cringing slave to the papacy, and seeking 
covertly to bring that great Protestant nation to the 
feet of Rome, — how did the Almighty God thwart 
his purposes, and, through the people, compel him to 
sign that magnificent document of English liber- 
ties, the Magna Charta ! 

It is not essential to greatness in character that 
our deeds should be heralded abroad, or that our 
life should be necessarily one that brings us into 
prominence. Some seek notoriety in one way, and 
some in another. A foolhardy citizen of Ephesus 
thought he would immortalize himself by putting a 
torch to the great Temple of Diana. One Brutus 
thought as much when he assassinated Julius Caesar, 
or J. Wilkes Booth when he shot down the friend 
of the Republic. The curses of the generation fall 
upon all such actions. But the humble are held in 
eternal esteem. Walking hand in hand with virtue 
will bring us into the paths of honor, and confer 
upon us responsibilities as great as we would desire. 



FRAIL BUT CAPABLE. 1 13 

True eminence results from royal thinking. Every- 
thing depends upon the man and the woman. 

In 1749 a French babe saw the light for the first 
time. He was to hold in after years a prominent 
place in the politics of that great nation. In vain 
was the effort made to curb his impetuous temper, 
and to inculcate in him the principles of honor and 
truth. He joined the army, became financially em- 
barrassed, married by intrigue a lady who had given 
her hand to another, and whom he afterward treated 
with great brutality. Polite, eloquent, born to com- 
mand, but ambitious, licentious, and possessed of 
uncontrollable passions, his brilliant mind threw 
off that great Constitution of France, which was 
signed amidst the booming of a thousand cannons 
and the wild enthusiasm of the people. A great 
brain and great success, everybody said. But he 
yielded to skepticism, ruled God out of his creed, 
had no hour for prayer, paid allegiance to no Savior, 
trusted in no atonement, read out of no inspired 
Book, and when he died said: " Open the windows. 
I shall die to-day. All that can be done now is to 
envelop one's self in perfume, crown one's self with 
flowers, surround one's self with music, and sink 
quietly into an everlasting sleep." 

In this century, and in our own land, another 
10 



H4 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

child was brought into being. Born poor, struggled 
up amid untoward circumstances, pushed up into the 
higher schools, cultivated a taste for classical author- 
ship, freshened himself with courage at the multi- 
plied openings of life, and entered upon a career of 
effort under the inspiration of his own brilliant 
motto: "It is no honor to appear in the arena; the 
wreath is for those who contend." It happened 
that this statesman of the highest order became a 
humble Christian, believing in the Holy Scriptures, 
in the divinity of the Savior, sought out the Sunday- 
school, accepted a place at the Lord's table, and did 
honor to himself by recognizing the Christian sys- 
tem. In the emergencies of Civil War, when the 
pillars of the Republic seemed to tremble, he faced 
the mob in New York City, and cried: " Clouds and 
darkness are round about the throne of God, but 
justice and judgment are the habitation of that 
throne. Fellow citizens, God reigns, and the Gov- 
ernment at Washington still lives." 

He is now the Nation's choice. It honors him 
with the supreme authority. A murderous hand 
strikes him down. Death is at the door. Bend low 
and catch the latest whisper: "I believe in God, 
and trust myself in his hands. Do n't be afraid to 
tell me frankly my condition. I am ready for the 
worst." The sea sobs as the life of this patriot fades 



FRAIL BUT CAPABLE. 1 15 

out of existence; the Princeton students scatter flow- 
ers upon the railway track as the funeral train is 
borne to the Capital ; the Queen of England bestows 
a chaplet of roses ; and a bereaved Nation pours out 
its complaint, and adds a prayer for Lucretia and the 
children. 

Which, then? Mirabeau, the idol of France; or 
Garfield, a son of the gospel? 



117 



■ -~ -\- - - - ------ - - - — 







! ^^^MM^ : &M&MMMMMMMMM 




Ghapter Eighth. 

THE ANGLO-SAXONS AHEAD. 

NE more decade, and we shall salute the 
twentieth century. Along the horizon the 
tints of the morning begin to kiss the sky. It 
getting daylight. When the dawn appears, it 
rill be the winding up of six thousand years of 
self-sacrificing devotion upon the part of men in 
their conquests upon this ambitious planet. Are 
we to understand that the life of the race is divided 
into epochs of two thousand years each? Two 
thousand years from the settlement of the globe to 
the rise of the Jewish nation ; two thousand more 
to the advent of the Supreme Man and his marvel- 
ous career. What next ? Is the curtain to be rolled 
down until a new and final act shall get upon the 
stage? The signals are out, and the times are por- 
tentous. Given : The Anglo-Saxon race to aid in per- 
fecting moral character in the aggregate. Some one 
has said that the beauty of a mansion can not be 

preserved if there is a drove of swine in the cellar, 

119 



120 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

a band of gypsies in the parlor, and a brood of vul- 
tures in the garret. Well, the crown of the race will* 
never be set until the proper principles are en- 
throned in the life of the people. The average citi- 
zen must aspire to the highest thought and service. 
The consummate flower of the world's civilization 
will never bloom until the conditions are fully met. 

The Argonauts ventured over many seas and 
braved the perils of the deep for the sake of the 
golden fleece. They did not listen to the silvery 
voices of the Sirens, but swept grandly past them 
in their earnest pursuit. We are face to face with 
many serious problems in the home, in the work- 
shop, in social and political life. We must not be 
soothed into deadly slumbers by deceitful voices, nor 
be willing to walk in the footsteps of former gener- 
ations. The nations which have stranded upon the 
rocks of national pride, prosperity, and self-com- 
placency, are memorials of the unchanging laws 
which control men and peoples. The wrecks are 
even now strewing the beach of the past, and are 
so many cautionary signals. 

The whole of this century has witnessed remark- 
able progress in the line of reforms and of a better 
civilization, and with no people so distinctively as 
with the Anglo-Saxons. 

It is well known that the eighteenth century 



THE ANGL OS AXONS AHEAD. 1 2 1 

was a great improvement upon its predecessors, but 
it went out in a spasm. I refer to that exhibition 
of bloody scenes known as the French Revolution. 
Later, Napoleon sauntered sullenly under the elms 
at St. Helena, brooding over his inglorious defeats. 
At the same time the allied powers of Europe, in 
their representatives, were grouped about a table in 
Vienna, trying to disentangle the skein which Na- 
poleon had so badly knotted. That conference had 
a marvelous opportunity. The map of Europe had 
been completely changed. Scores and hundreds of 
petty princes had been robbed of their authority. Is 
it too much to saj' that if such men as Washington, 
or Lincoln, or Grant — wise, philanthropic, good — 
had had the adjusting of the affairs of that Congress, 
that the whole of Europe would have made gigantic 
strides toward constitutional liberty and free gov- 
ernment? It remained for the Anglo-Saxon race, 
led by the British Government, to shortly put the 
plowshare into the soil of philanthropic move- 
ments, leading in this direction. 

The photographs of social and political life at 
the beginning of this century are very much shaded. 
The authors say that our farmers were so poor that 
they could n't stock their farms ; that they lived in 
the meanest kind of houses, and could hardly get 
the necessaries of life. The taxes were so high that 



122 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

men were driven to desperation in business and 
commercial affairs. The laws were oppressive; the 
prisons were full of prisoners, of men who could n't 
pay their debts, and men were hanged for the most 
trifling offenses. 

It was amid this state of affairs that the Anglo- 
Saxon idea, evolved from the New Testament, be- 
gan to assert itself; viz., that this planet was made 
for men — for men irrespective of blood, color, or 
previous condition. The Bill of Reform, by which 
the people were given a distinct voice in the Gov- 
ernment, though stoutly resisted by the higher 
classes, became a popular movement and a leading 
factor in revolutionizing the despotism of blood and 
money which had settled down upon the nations of 
the Old World. 

With the accession of Queen Victoria there came 
another uplift. During the fifty or more years of 
her wise reign, England has had to grapple with 
some mighty problems. Though hardly equal to 
every emergency, the trend of affairs has ever been 
toward the higher ideals of justice and manhood, 
which are manifestly the birthright of the offspring 
of God. 

The abolition of the African slave-trade, the 
emancipation of eight hundred millions of human 
beings in the British Colonies, the Charter of Rights 



THE ANGLO-SAXONS AHEAD. 123 

to the Jews and the Roman Catholics, together with 
the humanizing and illuminating tendencies in 
India, all combine to give her an eminent place in 
the outgrowth and progressive movements of philan- 
thropic ideas. 

When you come across the Atlantic, the horizon 
extends itself, and the vision becomes clarified. 
Watch the currents of social and political events, 
and say whether it is not true that the Anglo-Saxon 
mind is in " orders," and that America is to become 
the high-priest in philanthropic ministries to all the 
peoples who dwell upon this globe. America is, ev- 
idently, ordained of God to mold the thought and 
manage the destinies of the world. 

What do you see? Five millions of hardy pio- 
neers at the threshold of the century, blazing their 
way through the Old- World theories of an aristoc- 
racy of money, position, and birth, and a govern- 
ment for the privileged classes alone. Five millions 
of sturdy and honest masons are in the cellar of the 
Republic, laying the foundation-stones broad and 
deep. The verdict of their sons is that they were 
splendid mechanics. They set the plumb-line of 
justice and truth upon the thing. They squared it 
in liberty and good sense. They did not hobnob 
with the divine rights of kings ; they did not qui- 
etly submit to the dictation of the centuries. They 



124 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

ventured out upon the sea of providential dealing, 
and steered for the port. The bier of the Nation 
was draped in mourning at the death of that gallant 
patriot and Christian general, Washington ; but the 
spirit of patriotism and philanthropy was far from 
being dead. 

That golden charter of American independence 
crystallized itself in the hearts of the people. The 
right of petition, the right of discussion, the right 
of appeal from the few or man}^ the right of resist- 
ance in arms under certain circumstances, were all 
fundamentals, and enunciated and defended with 
great clearness. Religious tolerance was also in the 
air. The right of the ballot was soon followed by 
the repeal of the Alien Laws, by which the President 
had been allowed to exclude foreigners from the 
country. Then came the repeal of the Sedition 
Laws, and the granting of liberty to speech and 
press. 

Anything else springing to the front as an equip- 
ment for the Anglo-Saxon mind in its office as 
tutor? O yes. On through the years the trend is 
correct. Hark! Columbia is unlocking the hand- 
cuffs of four millions of slaves in the Southland! 
At the clanking of the chains, as they are thrown 
down at the black man's feet, the whole civilized 



THE ANGLO-SAXONS AHEAD. 125 

globe sets up a song. There are open gates at all 
of her ports, and the index-finger points to the wide- 
spread opportunities in city and mountain, in prairie 
and mine. Put on your eye-glasses, and watch the 
progress of her public-school system, her hospitals 
and homes. 

It is worse than idle to shut one's eyes to the 
"perils" of liberty. Liberty may become a very 
much-abused word. Indeed, the red lights are danc- 
ing along the track in alarming numbers. What 
shall be said? Let it be said that if the men of 
the Republic have n't backbone enough to stand by 
our cherished liberties, and defend them from the 
insinuating touches of the Vatican, we shall have 
to transfer the leadership to our wives and mothers. 
If we can not drive back the rum-fiend, guard the 
first day of the week, harmonize the relations of 
capital and labor, keep down the illiteracy of the 
country, we must take a few lessons on moral cour- 
age from the men and women who preceded us. 
Dribbling political idiots shouldn't disgrace their 
ancestry. 

M. Guizot, Napoleon-like, marshals France at the 
head of the column of modern civilization. But M. 
Guizot must excuse us. A nation so erratic, heady, 
fluctuating; that enthrones its idol to-day, casts it 



126 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

into the gutter to-morrow, and the third day swears 
that it never had an idol, — such a nation is hardly- 
worthy of leadership in the advancing column. 

French history is a kaleidoscope. It is full of 
contradictions, contrasts, absurdities. Its changes 
have been abrupt and precipitous. From monarchy 
to republic, to directory, and back again to mon- 
archy and republic — really, M. Guizot must ex- 
cuse us ! 

In literature, as in other fields, the Anglo-Saxons 
must lead. What have they originated? what de- 
veloped? what preserved? What can be transmitted? 
The age of Queen Elizabeth has, perhaps, never had 
a successor. We all christen it the Golden Age. It 
was absolutely genius in action. And yet it is 
doubtful whether there ever was a full century so 
prolific in methods, so positive in purpose, or so 
wide-awake in establishing good precedents as the 
nineteenth. The whole trend has been in the direc- 
tion of a wise and exalted Christian scholarship. 

Mark the brilliant delineations of character in 
Macaulay,. and the vivid portraiture of the times 
which he covers! See the colors in the brush of 
that royal painter Prescott, as he puts upon the 
canvas the successive events in Spanish and Amer- 
ican history! 

Could there be anything more exhilarating in 



THE ANGLO-SAXONS AHEAD. 127 

the line of historical romance than the glimpses of 
life from the picturesque pen of Walter Scott? Then, 
there is Irving and Bancroft, Thackeray and Dick- 
ens, Motley and Mrs. Browning, Wordsworth and 
Helen Jackson — nay, a great galaxy of magnificent 
minds — whose luster shall not grow dim so long as 
memory shall retain its throne. 

But these are only representative men and 
women. The century just closing is full of them, 
and their late and early deeds are embalmed in the 
hearts of grateful millions. 

And it is a good sign when the money of the 
times is falling in love with scholarship. Without 
a great deal of bluster, thoughtful men are conse- 
crating great fortunes to scientific, scholastic, theo- 
logical, and industrial institutions. The future weal 
of the youth of America seems to be lying hard 
upon the brain of their awakened purposes. So, 
also, the State has wisely resolved upon bold achieve- 
ments. It believes that trained teachers, trained 
artisans, competent guides for youth, as well as 
wholesome intellectual pursuits, lie at the basis of 
true national health and greatness, as expressed in 
the lives of her nameless citizens. 

The press, too, notwithstanding the parasites 
which continually prey upon its vitality in the shape 
of unprincipled reporters, Sunday editions, and 



128 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

editors who may be bribed — the press has had, is 
having, and will continue to have, great courage in 
giving to the public mind its conscious self-poise 
and self-assertion. We need not even despair of the 
Anglo-Saxon press as a factor in the perfect recon- 
struction of society. . 

There are also other humanizing tendencies in 
educational lines which assure us of the Anglo- 
Saxon supremacy. Students of history, science, 
literature, and even philosophy, amongst working- 
men ; students in the counting-room, kitchen, and 
elsewhere ; young persons bent upon higher attain- 
ments ; middle-aged, brow-beating difficulties, con- 
quering original dullness, and pushing through years 
of earnest study, — challenge our highest admiration 
because of prophecies of the future. 

And there is a refined moral and religious trend 
about these educational movements which is dis- 
tinctively Anglo-Saxon. What would be thought 
of the students of some of our foremost colleges 
should they attempt to spend their vacations in 
traveling from town to town and from city to city 
in idleness and vice, claiming to be students of the- 
ology, but guilty of burglaries, or card-playing, and 
like devious practices? And yet, upon the best 
authority, it is stated that such a state of things 



THE ANGLO-SAXONS AHEAD. 1 29 

existed in the German and French universities in 
the thirteenth century. 

And this peculiar trend has its legitimate source. 
Signor Gavazzi, the great Italian orator, gave the 
clue to this wonderful uplift in American society. 
He was himself a fine specimen of intellectual and 
physical manhood, and had on that day a brilliant 
audience in Henry Ward Beecher's Church. He 
had discoursed for an hour on his favorite theme, 
" Italian Unity and the Free Church of Italy." He 
then extolled American genius, thrift, and scholar- 
ship, when suddenly he straightened himself in his 
best style and with a peculiar shrug of the shoul- 
ders, and, clapping his hands upon either side of his 
face, he squeaked out in his falsetto voice : " What 
makes iVmerica so great? What makes her so 
great?" Before the audience could recover itself, 
being convulsed with laughter at his singular atti- 
tude and gestures, he shouted out at the top of his 
voice: " Ze Bible ! Ze Bible ! Ze Bible !" 

The influence of our Anglo-Saxon civilization is 
magnetic. What means the rearing of that fine 
statue in the very face of the Vatican, in the year 
of grace, 1889, of Giordano Bruno, a martyr to lib- 
erty, as he understood it ? What does it mean ? It 
means that the world is outgrowing the mediaeval 



130 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

heresies represented by the man who sits in the 
chair of St. Peter and exalts and curses at pleasure. 
The Jesuits must go ! They must get out of Amer- 
ica. Good-bye ! 

The world moves forward. Out of the nineteen 
leading Governments of Europe, Russia is the single 
absolute monarchy ; and it is impossible not to sym- 
pathize with that wing of the Nihilists which would 
throw off such an abominable yoke. All the other 
eighteen Governments have an upper and lower 
house of authority. Sometimes in one, sometimes 
in both, the delegates are appointed by male citizens 
of a given age, with property qualifications. Rou- 
mania has touched the highest point, in that her 
voters are male citizens over twenty-five years of 
age who can read and write. Ahead of America, 
although she kindled her fires at our hearth-stone. 
It might be well to get back some of the coals. 

What does all this mean? It means that the 
family of nations shall one day inscribe upon its 
banners the golden maxim of Mr. Lincoln, that 
" consummate flower " of our latter-day civilization, 
"that government of the people, by the people, 
and for the people, shall not perish from off the face 
of the whole earth." 

What is the relation, then, of Christian scholar- 
ship and Christian living to the possibilities of these 



THE ANGL OS AXONS AHEAD. 1 3 1 

ever-widening, ever-expanding forces of Anglo- 
Saxon civilization ? The ultimate power in the free 
commonwealth may, indeed, be the people. Pas- 
sion, the greed for money, prejudice and appetite, 
may often get the ascendency ; but reason and relig- 
ion must come to the front at last. Men in their 
sane moments are not willing to cast the pilot over- 
board in the roughness of the storm, nor risk the 
perils of unknown waters. When passion's spree is 
over, they are heard to say: "The lines should 
always be taut, the sails flung to the breeze, and the 
proper officer at the helm." The thinkers were rulers 
yesterday, they will be the rulers to-morrow. 

Quaint old Henry Thoreau once said : " When 
you want to drive a nail, do not fool around trying 
to set it in the plastering on the wall. If you do, 
you'll strike a lath, and you will hear the pieces 
dropping down in the inside. But drive your nail 
where it will stay ; then go round on the other side 
and clinch it, so that when you wake up at night 
you can say : ' My work was done with satisfaction.' " 

One night the harvest moon was sweeping 
through the sky. Dark, frowning, sullen clouds 
were drifting along. Conflicting currents of air 
drove them toward each other like so many angry 
assailants. Back and forth they rushed, and strug- 
gled and fought as if for victory. Like so many 



132 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

batteries, they were charged with electricity, the 
forked, fiery currents meanwhile darted in and out, 
and swept through the rifts as if they would rend 
them to pieces. All this while the moon was hid, 
the edges of gold alone indicating that it still was 
there. At length the battle of the clouds ceased. 
A stiff south wind drove them asunder, and in a 
moment they had disappeared. But the Queen of 
the Evening did not know that they had been there. 

How like the conflicting evils which prey upon 
society — the vain philosophies of men, the hered- 
itary taints, the mischievous dogmas, the conflicting 
passions, the unshapen doubts, the blasted lives ! 
Back and forth the thunderbolts are driven — back 
and forth from one generation to another. Many 
times the truth seems to be hid; but by and by the 
contestants get exhausted. They fade out of life, 
the arena is abandoned, but the truth remains. On 
and on, through the illimitable periods of the life- 
time of the race, it burns, and gleams, and shines, 
like a fiery planet sweeping through the sky. 

It belongs to young Anglo-Saxon manhood and 
womanhood to enter the arena of truth, and stand 
for its defense. We are to regard ourselves as fac- 
tors in the career of this advanced and advancing 
civilization. 



" Bhtg, ~& bBlIs, BbsUib IFtb sIjor.B, 
$'Br anb n'sr; 
Wbztit fljB forssf tempi? roatf% 
3lnb uplifts Ijsr IjunbrBb. gates 
&d ffjB BagBr fBBf nf gtmttj, 
STo fljB sBBkBr for Hjb fruffj." 

Chautauqua Song. 
i33 



Chapter flipth. 

A SPECIAL GOAL. 

\ /gHAUTAUQUA has become a magical word. 
VLi Rescued from the oblivion of the red man's 
vocabulary, it is the synonym for all manner of 
healthy recreation in literature, reform, and 
I sprightly living. It is none the less charming 
because it makes its home in the woods, and 
claims the midsummer as its own. The lake of the 
same name, upon whose bank, in New York, this 
great educational venture is established, lies in its 
channel, like a second Gennesaret. It has many his- 
toric associations. When it was that the Creator 
scooped out its magnificent bed ; when it was that 
he gave to the silvery sheen its power to mirror 
forth your face or his own splendid sky, none 
knoweth. When was it that he gave to the undu- 
lating hills their dress of green, their wealth of 
fruits ? How short a while back we can go ! We 
call it the long ago — two centuries. But what of 
the seventeen centuries? What of the cycles back 

i35 



136 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

of them? Some skeleton mounds and implements 
of warfare, turned over by the plow of the early- 
settlers, reveal a civilization back of the American 
Indian. Who, what, and when? All is silent. 
Then came the Iroquois, then the Dutch, then the 
Yankees — survival of the fittest. Take one of the 
elegant steamers on the lake, and land at the Chau- 
tauqua wharf. About you is the mystic grove. 
What a fascination there is about the woods ! In 
the opening spring, the deepening summer, or the 
latest autumn, how much of the supernatural is 
thrust upon us when face to face with the silences, 
secrets, and destinies of nature ! 

No wonder the Druids went into the depth ot 
the woods to worship. There they built their sac- 
rificial altars, gathered the mistletoe, indulged their 
bloody rites, and read the destinies of men and na- 
tions in the fluctuations of wandering stars. 

It was Ruskin who said: " What a beautiful 
thought it was when God thought of making a 
tree !" Well, at Chautauqua you will find the oak 
and maple, the beech and hickory, with their trail- 
ing boughs and their shimmering leaves, throbbing 
and palpitating with life from root to tip, and joy- 
ous all with song of birds. There, too, are the 
slanting shadows, the soft winds whispering at dawn 
of day or at its death, the great rocks — sentinels of 



A SPECIAL GOAL. 137 

power — the mosses, ferns, and creeping vines, the 
gentian, columbine, and ever-welcome golden-rod. 
All these waken into faithful instinct at once love 
to Him whose power and wisdom are so signally 
displayed. 

To some, nature is nothing. Recently a friend 
of mine was standing upon an elevated plateau, 
and was extracting exquisite things out of the brill- 
iant sunset. The sky was crimsoned with a glory 
hardly belonging to earth. A magnificent stretch 
of silver clouds were piling themselves upon each 
other, until they looked like a thousand Alpine 
cliffs tipped with gold. Turning to a gentleman, he 
said, almost out of breath: "Do you see those mag- 
nificent clouds there?" 

The stranger paused a moment, and coolly re- 
plied : "O yes. I think they must be full of wind!" 

The Chautauqua grove, with its three hundred 
acres, is not materially different frjtn an ordi- 
nary wood, albeit its eastern stretch is washed by 
the waters of the historic inland lake, and hun- 
dreds of beautiful cottages adorn its avenues, and 
crowds of interesting people throng its seclusive 
ways. 

But the encampment is altogether different. It 
is unique. Some Christian scholars purchased this 
grove, and dedicated it to science, religion, reform, 



138 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

and recreation. It has become the most charming 
literary venture of the age. 

With vastly better principles, and under the 
leadership of a divine Book, it is a reproduction of 
the old Grecian idea by which Zeno, Plato, Socrates, 
and Aristotle endeavored to freshen the intellectual 
tastes and impulses of Grecian youth at the classic 
shades of the Porch and the Academy. 

St. Paul did not condemn the Athenians for 
their culture and civilization when he visited them ; 
he only condemned their false philosophies and 
superstitious rites [in religion. He was a scholar 
himself of the first order. His love of the beautiful 
was increased by his love for God. He looked upon 
Athens as a museum of art. The splendid pieces of 
architecture, the splendid pieces of sculpturing, the 
venerable mountains, the historic streams and roman- 
tic glades, filled him with awe. The monuments, 
altars, and public buildings were, many of them, 
dedicated to patriotism and scholarship. Paul was 
both scholar and patriot. He struck hard blows, 
though, at the materialism of the day, at the sto- 
icism and epicureanism of the times. His righteous 
soul was stirred at their idolatry, wrought up, as it 
was, into a systematic and powerful scheme. He 
saw that it made the people voluptuous, selfish, un- 
scrupulous, effeminate, and false. He had been in 



A SPECIAL GOAL. 139 

a divine school. The idea of the Christ, crucified, 
risen, and glorified, had possession of him. The 
empty sepulcher, the folded napkin, the attending 
angels, the greetings of the Master, the ascension, 
the promise of a second coming, were all thrillingly 
bold and exhilarating pleasures of intellect and heart. 

Chautauqua is built upon Christ. The Bible, as 
an authentic, inspired, omnipotent book, lies at the 
basis of the whole movement. In its history, whether 
on the platform, at the desk or school, there has 
never appeared the least shadow of innuendo against 
the glorious old Book. L,ike the perpetual fires of 
the vestal virgins on the altar at Rome, love for 
God's Word does not die out. Whatever is deepest 
in reverence, profoundest in investigation, most 
wholesome in defense, have been freely and consci- 
entiously given unto it. 

The age in which we live has turned to examine 
the foundations of things. Never were atheistic 
scientists and philosophers bolder in taking posi- 
tions, or more tenacious in maintaining theories 
which long ago had spent their force ; hunting for 
the pre-adamite man ; hunting for the processes of 
spontaneous generation and the primal causes of 
life; talking learnedly and loudly of "star-dust" 
and " sky vortices ;" and, in a word, trying to arraign 
the Bible at the bar of science and to thrust a bridge- 



140 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

less chasm between the soul of man and the Almighty 
Creator. 

True scholarship does not avoid investigation, 
and the Christian scholarship of Chautauqua does 
not quail before the most enlightened and cultured 
scientific thought. It has planted itself upon the 
divine Book, and laughs to scorn any effort to make 
irreconcilable science and revelation. The great 
scheme of normal class-work has to do with methods 
of interpreting the Bible, methods for illustrating 
Bible truth, and methods for analyzing the same. 

It is a beautiful sight to look in upon a number 
of large divisions of Sunday-school teachers, study- 
ing for weeks the principles and methods of inter- 
pretation and communicating truth — primary teach- 
ers becoming skilled in their departments, teachers of 
adult and intermediate classes — all absorbed in class- 
drills, passing through written examinations, and 
receiving diplomas based upon merit, even as secular 
teachers pass the drills of the normal schools in our 
State institutions. 

To aid in such a work, there is also the study of 
models. Palestine Park gives the Holy L,and in 
miniature. It consists of a plot of ground several 
hundred yards in length, laid out upon a scale of 
two feet to the mile for horizontal distances, and 
one foot for three hundred and eighty for vertical 



A SPECIAL GOAL. 141 

distances. The lake answers for the Mediterranean 
Sea; and along the coast are located in miniature 
the sea-port towns of Joppa, Tyre, Sidon, Gaza, etc. 
On entering from the south, you touch Beersheba, 
where Abraham dwelt; Hebron, one of the oldest 
cities in the land; thence to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, 
and the country of Judea. To the east lie the Dead 
Sea and the mountains of Moab. Northward, as 
you advance, is Samaria, the plain of Esdraelon, 
Carmel, etc. ; thence to the north and east, where the 
snow-capped mountains of Lebanon show the sources 
of the Jordan ; and in the extreme north the 
renowned Damascus, "the Eye of the East." The 
Bible student, with the Book in hand, may sit here 
and locate with interest the points of Old and New 
Testament histo^ with decision and delight. The 
model of Jerusalem is no less interesting, with its 
tiny houses, narrow streets, towers, and public 
buildings. Other models, as those of the Jewish 
Tabernacle, Pyramids, Ark of the Covenant, and 
Temple, call up tender but golden historic inci- 
dents. 

An extensive archseological museum is forming, 
which contains specimens of the flora and fauna of 
the Holy Land, minerals, fossil remains, Oriental 
coins, costumes, farming implements, household 
utensils, idols, photographic scenes, cast of the 



142 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

winged bull of Nineveh, winged lion, facsimile of 
the Moabite stone, Rosetta stone, and ancient and 
Egyptian obelisks. 

The historical exhibition is a veritable tableau 
of history. The world's civilization is divided into 
seven epochs — Greek, Roman, Middle Ages, Renais- 
sance, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, 
and Nineteenth Century. 

" In the Greek Room you will meet the athlete, 
the philosopher, the sophist, the sculptor, the actor, 
and the poet. 

" In the Roman Room you will meet the soldier, 
the advocate, the gladiator, and functionaries, both 
civil and religious, without number. 

" In the Mediaeval Room you will meet the saint 
and the king, knights and monks, priests and 
lords, pilgrims, minstrels, robbers, and buffoons. 

" In the Shakespearean Room you will meet the 
artist, the humanist, and the reformer, the captain, 
the virtuoso, the adventurer, and the despot. 

" In the Cromwellian Room you will be intro- 
duced to the Spanish cavalier, the French minister, 
and many English scholars and divines. In the 
Voltairean Room you will meet with courtiers, gen- 
tlemen, and deists. In the room with Abraham 
Lincoln you will find the business man, the en- 
gineer, the capitalist, the journalist, and the 'sci- 



A SPECIAL GOAL. 143 

entist.' Then seven rooms on the seven ages of 
Europe. Having passed through them, you can 
decide in which age you would prefer to live. Sev- 
enty-five generations of men stand between the 
athlete and sophist, and the engineer and scientist. 
To know these generations is to know history." 

In the line of the highest Christian scholarship, 
questions of science, patriotism, missionary effort, 
temperance reform, health, and religion are consid- 
ered in lectures, talks, addresses, and conversaziones, 
by the leading men of the county. This feast of 
reason and flow of soul is a daily luxury for weeks ; 
so that if it were not for the variety and change 
from grave to gay, from lecture to concert, from 
sermon to stereopticon talk, the surfeit would be 
great. 

It was General Garfield who said, in his visit 
there in 1880: 

"Gentlemen, you are struggling with one of the 
two great problems of civilization. The first is a 
very old struggle. It is how we shall get any 
leisure. That is the problem of every hammer- 
stroke, of every blow that labor has struck since 
the foundation of the world. The second is, what 
to do with our leisure when we have it. I take it 
that Chautauqua has assailed this second problem. 
We are getting over the business of varnishing our 



144 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

' native woods ' and painting them. We are getting 
down to the real grain, and finding out what is best 
and truest in it ; and if Chautauqua is helping to 
garnish our people with the native stuff that is in 
them, rather than with the paint and varnish and 
gewgaws of culture, it is doing well." 

Marine fire- works, illuminated fleet, moonlight 
excursions on the lake, boating, bathing, lawn- 
tennis, calisthenics, make up the hours of recreation. 

But is Chautauqua not superficial? And should 
not the Christian Church let the work of mental 
culture alone? Chautauqua proposes simply to 
macadamize the royal road to learning, to open up 
to the average man the path to the springs of 
knowledge, to stimulate independent thought, to 
bring all truth into harmony with our life, and to 
act as a breakwater to the tide of skepticism and un- 
belief which comes pouring in upon us. 

The Schools of Correspondence are taking on all 
the forms of practical usefulness. The School of 
Theology gives attention to Church history, social 
science, and the whole field of doctrine, and a de- 
veloping Christian life. The School of Languages, 
after the natural method of teaching, the Schools 
of Music, Oratory, Photography, Phonography, and 
others, are sources of practical development. 



A SPECIAL GOAL. 145 

At a thousand sensitive points this movement 
touches society. The average youth may find here 
the freshest and fullest opportunity for self-help 
that is available anywhere. 

Through the Literary and Scientific Circle, by 
its course of reading in all the fields of literature, 
the busy farmer, apprentice, housewife, kitchen-girl, 
may be helped up into most delightful experiences. 
The course is a thoroughly thought-out and thor- 
oughly wrought-out system, with a wide scope, fer- 
tile in its resources, and intensely quickening in its 
tendencies* 

The time was when physical culture was largely 
insisted upon to the exclusion of the mental. A stal- 
wart frame, well-developed muscles, and iron nerves 
were sought after with great eagerness. The frag- 
ments of classic statuary now in our museums are 
evidences of the commanding sentiment in this par- 
ticular amongst the Greeks and Romans. Later on, 
courage was the strong elemental idea in culture; 
and so the young knights of the Middle Ages were 
instructed to join the Crusades in rescuing the Holy 
Land from the grip of the infidel. 

Without depreciating physical exercise, or in any- 
wise discounting the tendencies to develop these 
powers, let it be said, once and for all, that the intel- 

*3 



146 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

lect must be on the throne and the proper drill 
in intellectual calisthenics is the demand of the pres- 
ent hour. 

The Christian who leans too strongly to the 
emotional, cultivates his feelings to excess, will soon 
find himself to be what one has aptly called a lop- 
sided fellow. 

What we need is to stimulate our mental activi- 
ties, to rouse our mental curiosity, to exercise our 
mental ingenuity, to get a keen relish for intellectual 
pursuits, to get able to thoroughly analyze a book, 
analyze a sermon or a poem or a lecture, think for 
ourselves, widen the horizon about us, get the vision 
perfectly clear, and then lay our little acquisitions 
and talents at the feet of the King of men. 



lUsoIoBb, ffiljai Wxt anb fflterrhnBttf anb 

(Exuhzxanl ^ptrtfs are .3TBafrirfc» 

jof 1&nx ^Brtfag^. 

147 



iOOOOOOOOOOOOCSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCXXXiOOOOGOOOC 




Chapter Tentfy 



AT PLAY. 

THE social circle is instinct with pleas for 
its own existence. It lives by right of its 
I \*i own authority to bless the world. It must be- 
come, also, its own servant, if it would prosper. 
To serve well, it will be necessary for it to 
broaden its horizon; to get upon some of the 
hill-tops and take in the whole situation. It must 
look beyond the narrow limits of present gratifica- 
tion. If its tendencies are in the direction of the 
noblest thinking and the most perfect living, there 
will follow the most perfect and capable pleasures. 
Whence, then, should spring the charms of the 
social circle? Certainly from a lofty ideal — from a 
high conception. This ideal should never become 
a creature of mere chance or of temporary gratifica- 
tion. We should select the best things in amuse- 
ments, even as we are wont to do in other things. 

We do not wish to be put off with even average 

149 



150 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

things. Our ideal must be born of a high purpose 
and out of a desire to touch the noblest things. Can 
we adopt this principle in selecting amusements? 
Can we spend evenings profitably without the dance 
or the card-table? If we are not willing to try and 
touch the best things, it is idle to argue. Goethe 
says: " What we w T ish for in youth comes in heaps 
on us in old age." That is the truth. Dancing, as 
a factor in society, can not furnish the highest testi- 
monials, nor can those who beat about the card- 
table claim that social hour as of the most elevating 
and refining tendencies. 

Some one has glibly said that " dancing, whist, 
and euchre are tickets of admission to the dress- 
circle of mankind ; that being masters here, ena- 
bles youth to judge intelligently of much on which 
otherwise they would give but a pedantic squint." 
But these same men sa} T anything that will carry. 
They say the thing that suits their tastes and un- 
bridled desires. 

Experience determines everywhere that there 
should be a high standard in talking and doing. 
Conscience can not be recognized as that standard. 
The conscience is elastic. It can be so stretched 
that men may say Good I^ord and Good Devil in the 
same breath. The real ticket of admission into the 
best society and the best thought is a noble concep- 



AT PLAY. 151 

tion of how to live. Add to this a true estimate of 
our relation to others and a continuous and persist- 
ent effort at character-building, and you have the 
ground-work for first-class endeavor along all lines. 
If, then, our amusements can have a rational 
basis, if they can create wholesome pleasures, if they 
can be repeated time and again without detriment 
to our best interests and make the heart jubilant 
under the chafings of dairy cares, they are altogether 
worthy. If they can not win here, they merit our 
distrust, and should be avoided. 

There are most happ}~ and agreeable hours bound 
up in any social party if the resort is made to 
specialties. 

A bright, sunny, animated conversation is always 
a pleasant pastime. But in order to cover the pov- 
erty of the mind in some, it will be necessary to 
choose a subject that is within easy range of all. To 
converse well is a great accomplishment, and the 
read}', constant, energetic practice of the art is the 
one thing that will develop it. But there must be 
something more than idle gossip, something better 
than the stale topics of the weather and the pros- 
pect of the peach-crop. It is possible that but few 
would be willing to have recorded and read by 
others the details of a conversation covering any 
hour of the day, much less the chat at the evening 



152 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

hour. We are dwindling into a set of mere ma- 
chines, nonnies, ciphers, by this failure to cultivate 
the art of conversing well. 

Then, a social company may introduce with 
great pleasure and profit some invisible guests, who, 
in turn, will edify and please, according to their 
versatility and power. Take the "musicians" — 
they are always a merry-making crowd; or the 
"poets" — they have an unusual flow of spirits; or 
the "artists" — they can turn the bright side of a 
picture toward you with excellent effect ; or the 
"patriots," "inventors," "discoverers;" or the 
" ruling sovereigns " of the past or present. 

None of these are melancholy companions. They 
can all create mirth. They will serve us if we treat 
them well. 

Bring in the " humorists." To illustrate : If the 
"poets" are to be the companions of the hour, let 
the parlor be beautified with a few busts of these 
men and women of song. 

If some one special poet is to be introduced, the 
evening can be made all the more entertaining. 
Take our own Longfellow. 

Let some copies of his writings be brought upon 
the center- table — whether in homely or elegant bind- 
ing, it matters not ; then some pictures of himself, 
his home, his stud}', his native town. Let some one 



AT PLAY. 153 

tell the story of his boyhood; another that of his 
college life; a third the " influence of his literary life 
upon his generation;" a fourth compare him with 
the brotherhood of poets, speaking of the compara- 
tive merits of his earlier and later poems; and a fifth 
give some account of his home-life and of his relig- 
ion. Let his books become the topic of conversa- 
tion. If some one will read his " Golden Legend," 
"Wayside Inn," "Driftwood," "Fireside," or ex- 
tracts from " Evangeline," such an evening will put 
the soul into communion with a high order of talent, 
will give a keen relish for a high order of song, and 
yet will not lead us to build an altar to the poet, nor 
yet cause us to bow down at the shrine of hero- 
worship. 

Try other poets, as Wordsworth, Mrs. Browning, 
or Whittier. Wordsworth will put you into com- 
munion with the glories of the physical world. Mrs. 
Browning will lead you into the sublimities of 
personal characteristics. Whittier will thrill you 
through and through with his songs of freedom and 
his hatred of human slavery. Only give room for 
the play of originality and invention upon the part 
of the leader, and the pleasure of the evening is 
altogether assured. 

Or, suppose we elect another line of thought: 
What cheerful fields are those where the great " vio- 



154 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

linists," " pianists," or "vocalists " wander to amuse ! 
The mere mention of some of their great names 
would be a splendid exercise. To speak of their 
qualities, their mode of life, their eccentricities, the 
manner in which they antagonize the brood of pessi- 
mists who go through the world croaking and com- 
plaining, and from whom most of us are saying: 
" Good Lord, deliver us !" — all this will intensify the 
interest. The conversation must not be stiff and 
formal, and the questions and answers, as to the best 
means of developing the musical talent of the vil- 
lage or town, must grow into practical plans for 
accomplishing the same. Bring in the cornet and 
flute, open out the piano, and let the hour ring out 
with good cheer from every side. All this will bring 
a desire for repetition, a good conscience, and a happy 
heart. 

The microscope should be brought into requisi- 
tion as a source of pleasure and gratification in the 
social circle. The uninitiated will be specially inter- 
ested, and those who are already acquainted with 
the mysteries of nature will take pride in making 
farther discoveries. The most common objects put 
on a new face under the mystic lens. The most 
powerful investigation at hand, the pleasure will be 
doubled. Even the ordinary microscope need not 
be despised. The end of a corn-cob will interest; 



AT PLAY. 155 

the web of a spider, the wing of a butterfly, a piece 
of conglomerate rock, or, indeed, anything that God 
made, will stand out with prominence in its mysteri- 
ous history, and furnish food for reflection and adora- 
tion for many days. The varied forms of living 
matter in the aquarium, the fossil remains of the 
geological cabinet, the newly-cut buds or the name- 
less specimens of the natural world, will reveal, de- 
sign, and fill the soul with troops of exhilarating 
pleasures. The finer the instrument, the more per- 
fect will be the joy at the new disclosures. 

A familiar and entertaining evening can be 
reached by an effort to analyze a book. Take " Troy 
and its Remains." By the aid of the hectograph, 
fac-simile copies may be made of the wonderful 
bronze, ivory, gold, and terra-cotta pieces, full of 
symbolic and historic interest, dug up by Dr. 
Schliemann. Take that admirable book, "Picturesque 
Palestine." The cuts maybe removed, grouped in a 
geographical way, so that, commencing in Southern 
Palestine and tracing the historic sites, opening up to 
the vision the habits and customs of the people, you 
have somewhat of a tour through that interesting 
country by an open grate of anthracite and under 
the mellow rays of the German student lamp, with- 
out the expense, inconvenience, or hardships of such 
a trip. The pleasure will be greatly enhanced if 



156 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

some one is present who has made the circuit of 
that land, and can entertain by incidents and observa- 
tions of the journey. A portfolio of pictures can be 
made to serve the pleasure of a large company. 

A pastime of no mean proportions may be had 
where one of Shakespeare's plays is read in a 
social way, each character being represented by a 
good reader, followed by good-natured criticisms. 
Take "Hamlet," or the "Merchant of Venice," or 
" Measure for Measure," or "Othello." The time 
will escape all too rapidly, and the refreshments and 
toasts will lead to good cheer and a happy ad- 
journment. 

Under the direction of one of the more skillful 
of a company, large pleasure can be had by noting 
the properties, affinities and changes which occur 
by means of chemical and electrical experiments. 
Elaborate apparatus is not necessary to create or 
sustain the interest in these lines, and every suc- 
cessful 'effort will lead to a more fascinating ven- 
ture. The transition, too, will be easy and natural 
from such experiments to locating the constella- 
tions and fixed stars in the heavens, by means of 
the astral lantern and the cuts and charts which 
are found in the book-markets. 

And could there be anything more simple or 
agreeable than to extemporize a miniature art gal- 



AT PLAY. 157 

lery, including photographs of Mr. Kemy's " Wild 
Animals of America," or the splendid specimens of 
Mr. Rogers's groups? The stereoscope and sciop- 
ticon are serviceable in the hands of a well-informed 
and capable leader. 

The judicious use of tableaux and charades, the 
study of the town architecture, the introduction of 
historical, biographical, and geographical games, all 
of which contain elements of merriment, tend to- 
ward a true intellectual and social quickening. At 
the present there may be found in the market a 
large variety of these games, including American, 
English, Greek, and Roman history, astronomy, lit- 
erature, and kindred subjects, which in themselves 
combine to act as a wholesome diversion, preserve 
the proprieties of social life, and upon which every- 
body may look with decided approbation. 



BratJE ^pirtfg ars ttEBbsb af Hjb ©ufpnsfs, 

159 




Chapter Eleventh. 

A FORMIDABLE BREASTWORK. 

OME time in the cycles of eternity, the 
globe upon which we live was thrust 
out among its sister worlds by an unseen 
power. The motive for its creation is not with 
us; but the act, with all its subsequent results, 
belongs properly to the actors upon the stage 
of our every-day life. The work ending, the " rest- 
ing" was hallowed for the sake of humanity. The 
Sabbath is not, therefore, of man, but for man. The 
Ten Commandments outlined its obligations. In 
the transition from the old to the new, the seventh 
day of the week yielded to the first, even as re- 
demption is greater than creation. 

It has been demonstrated that one day in seven — 
not one in ten, or twenty, or thirty, but one in seven — 
is the exact ratio necessary to restore the waste of 
mind and body in the excessive duties of life. The 
rest of the night is insufficient, even amongst those 

who do not turn the night into day. 

14 161 



162 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

The men who insist on having no Sabbath, but, 
with an irrepressible spirit, assume duties which 
break in upon the hours of the holy Sabbath, are 
the men who go to an early grave. 

As a simple humanitarian measure, the Sabbath 
is a weekly benediction. It is Godsend harbor 
amidst the tempest and the waves of secular and 
domestic life; it is Godsend oasis in this tramp 
through the desert. The fret and worry, the wear 
and tear of the physical system, make men natu- 
rally yearn for a day of refreshment and quiet. From 
the stand-point of the toiler, the homeward trudging 
of a Saturday evening, with dinner-pail in hand 
and a thought of the morrow, is of itself a restful 
exercise. 

But to convert the day into a mere rest-day is 
to tear in shreds the moral obligation, and to clas- 
sify men with the creation that is destitute of a 
moral sense. 

The disposition that is upon us in some quar- 
ters — semi-infidel if not semi-demon — to cast off the 
moral restraints, engage in social pleasures, excur- 
sion it to the sea and the mountain, to visit the 
beer-gardens, to look in upon games of base-ball, 
should be resisted in the most vigorous and positive 
manner. 

These great questions are forcing themselves 



A FORMIDABLE BREASTWORK. 163 

upon us more and more; and it is well for all of 
our young people to take a tenable position, and 
one that is altogether unequivocal. If it really 
means that our glorious old Sabbath, with its name- 
less memories, is to be ignored, if not over- 
thrown, it is well that we should know it. It may 
be well for us to cast about and see who are the en- 
emies of the day. The men who boast that they 
are agnostics manifestly head the column. Their 
negations are an insult to enlightened reason. 
Along with the destruction of the Book, they would 
blot out from the calendar the day of all others the 
best. 

The great Roman Catholic Church, whilst re- 
garding the day in a certain sense, yet by multiply- 
ing holy days, and throwing about them a sacred- 
ness equal to the Sabbath — by using the forenoon 
for the mass, and then granting permission to spend 
the remainder of the day as one may please — the 
great Roman Catholic Church must call a halt, and 
practice the grace of consistency. Her priests must 
not stand before enlightened communities in the 
garb of Sabbatarians, and at the 'same time give 
loose reins to the laity to outrage the sentiment 
which believes in the Fourth Commandment. 

The secular press of the country, by its innova- 
tion of the Sunday edition — the hawking about the 



1 64 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

streets of the same, first by the Jew boys, but now 
by any one who wishes to earn tobacco money — 
the secular press is guilty before the bar of Chris- 
tian sentiment of a breach of honor and integ- 
rity. The apology that the people demand it, is as 
fallacious and wickedly conceived as that other ar- 
gument, that because the public reads the wholesale 
gossip dished out day after day, retailing the mur- 
ders and nameless crimes committed, that therefore 
these things must be printed. 

The railroad corporations of the country must be 
arrested by public sentiment in their ever-increas- 
ing disposition to break down the Lord's-day. The 
ponderous freight-trains or the smoothly-rolling ex- 
press-trains drive through our quiet towns and vil- 
lages as if there were no Sunday laws upon our 
statute-books, or as if the Almighty was not upon 
the throne of the universe. Under the specious 
plea of carrying perishable property, or cattle for 
the Eastern markets, their employees are denied the 
privileges of the sanctuary, backslide in religion, 
and make no provision for their souls ; whilst some 
of the officers of the roads are sitting in cushioned 
pews in church, or at the head of some Sunday- 
school, the responsible culprits. 

The mayors of our cities and towns are allowing 
a certain class of business men to put the wedge 






A FORMIDABLE BREASTWORK. 165 

into the sacredness of the Sabbath, which is being 
driven home with each advancing year. The open 
cigar and candy stores, the open barber-shops, the 
ice-wagons and milk-wagons, and sundry other un- 
necessary engagements, should be prohibited, not 
only by force of existing statutes, but by the pub- 
lic sentiment reaching such a degree of intensity 
that it would be regarded as disreputable to engage 
in the same. 

Thoughtful men throughout the country are 
turning toward the young men and young women 
of our Churches to come to the front on the Sab- 
bath question. Banded together as Endeavor Soci- 
eties, Leagues, or Alliances, it is not only proper 
that they should have decided views upon the ques- 
tion, but that the sentiment and effort of the same 
should crystallize, that some positive movement in 
this direction should be made. The secular press is 
silent, business men are silent. Toleration is play- 
ing mischief with others. Lodges, brotherhoods, 
and unions meet and adjourn, from time to time, 
with no note of warning. 

The rigid Puritanic idea of the sacredness of the 
day may not be deemed essential in which a man 
was prohibited from kissing his wife, but that golden 
mean by which, as the Master himself pronounced 
upon it, that " the Sabbath was made for man and 



1 66 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

not man for the Sabbath," which becomes in turn a 
rest, a refreshment, a blessing. 

The day should become one of self-culture. The 
standard of personal attainment in intellectual lines 
is altogether too low. Few read books. Good books 
are carefully pushed into the library cases, beauti- 
fully bound; but who reads them? After the work- 
day has passed, the evenings are spent in social chat- 
ting, walking the streets, or superficially glancing at 
the newspapers. Is there nothing better for the 
average man than this? What splendid incentives 
there are to broadening the mental horizon, but how 
few make the venture! 

It should become, too, a day of active benevo- 
lence — the quiet visit to the sick-room, the pure 
and beautiful ministries to the poor, the imprisoned, 
the instruction of childhood, the management of the 
Mission Sunday-school. Here deeds may be regis- 
tered which in after days shall be productive of 
glorious results. 

Duty also points to the specific acts of religious 
devotion. We are not to do our own pleasure, not 
to do our own ways, nor speak our own thoughts, 
but to call the day a constant delight. 

But this is the picture of many a Sabbath in 
American homes : Sluggish movements in the morn- 
ing, lolling about in careless dress, the newspaper 



A FORMIDABLE BREASTWORK. 167 

read and discussed, worship neglected, an afternoon 
drive, formation of plans for to-morrow. Amongst 
the young men it is likely worse. In only a tolera- 
ble humor growing out of late hours on Saturday 
night, late breakfast, turning out upon the street to 
find their comrades at the engine-house or club- 
room ; then a stroll, a game of chance, a glass of 
brandy, and in the evening a visit to the Church 
that has the smartest preacher and the prettiest 
girls. Love for the day, love for the Lord's house, 
love for Bible instruction, does not enter into the 
inventory whatever. This is all working out its 
legitimate but fatal results. 

Nevertheless, to many, the day is pregnant with 
memories. 

The Sabbaths of our childhood had the touch of 
blessed influences upon them, — the golden morn- 
ings, the magnificent landscapes, the affectionate 
voice at the foot of the stairs, the song and Scrip- 
ture and prayer of the home worship, the frugal 
meal, the melody of the church -bell floating in the 
air, the simple exercise in the Sunday-school, the 
winning words of the teacher, the wending crowds 
to the house of worship, the old-fashioned preacher 
at the desk and his tender message, the afternoon 
and its quiet hour with a book, the eventide circle 
when the artists came down out of heaven and 



1 68 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

painted the sky in amber and gold, the sweet memory 
song of mother, the closing hours of worship, the 
good-night kiss, and the dream about God. So far 
from being irksome or grievous, we wished for their 
return. They were consistent with our thoughts of 
duty and of our destiny, and typical of the after- 
ward of the skies. 

Confused as we are betimes in the daily round 
of duty and trial, absorbed in the effort to win our 
bread, heaven seems very far away ; but the Sab- 
bath, when spent aright, foreshadows the day when 
we shall greet the magnificent men and glorious 
women of our ancestry, who, grouped upon the dis- 
tant shores of eternity, have freed themselves of the 
secularities of the earth, and ride upon the high 
places of privilege and power. 



af ifje present Tfyonx. 

169 



TjMBiiaMB Mb Man 



Chapter Twelfth, 



FORGING A MISSING LINK. 



THERE is manifestly a great chasm between 
scholarship in the Sunday-school and disci- 
pleship in the Church, which ought to be 
bridged. As much as we may declare that the 
Sunday-school is an integral part of the Church, 
and not an appendage, the fact nevertheless re- 
mains that a large number of our young people are 
yearry eliminated from the classes, to become the 
prey of worldliness, vice, skepticism, and general 
wrong-doing. 

This is true after the introduction of varied ap- 
pliances and requisites for creating interest and com- 
mitting the people to the cause. Our schools have 
been classified. Every available instrumentality to 
perfect them has been brought forward. There are 
the special uniform lessons, the extensive libraries, 
the high order of instrumental and vocal music, the 

normal classes, special services for holidays, beauti- 

171 



172 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

ful rooms, charts, globes, and pictures in endless 
profusion. But in the chain of our endeavor there 
is a missing link ; a link which must be forged out 
of somebody's love ; a link which must be welded 
in the fires of somebody's spiritual desire and pur- 
pose; a link which, when made, is to be used for 
binding in one two chains which are now dissevered — 
the chain of personal consecration to God and the 
theoretical teaching of divine truth. That link is 
the adaptation of means to an end, rather than the 
use of means as an end. Who can forge, and weld, 
and bind that link so well as the young people of 
our societies? 

Childhood is a marvelous force. Those who 
seek to instruct it, find themselves modeling in 
plastic thought, feeling, and character. They are 
shaping vessels of honor or dishonor, which shall 
be used in the holy of holies above and throughout 
eternity, or be broken into pieces upon the rocks 
of eternal condemnation. 

The child is thrust out upon its career of living 
without the consent of its own volition ; but once 
thrust out, it has wrapped up within itself all man- 
ner of brilliant possibilities in selfhood and self- 
assertion. If it could only be unhampered in its 
tremendous effort at character-building, the results 
would, no doubt, be glorious ; but it is not. Facul- 



FORGING A MISSING LINK. 173 

ties are blunted by an evil master. The Holy One 
of Israel is limited in his gracious designs, and the 
way to goodness hedged about so, that if success is 
reached at all, it is reached through the keenest dis- 
crimination and the most positive and unconquer- 
able faith. A single life is so far-reaching in its 
results, and stretches over such illimitable fields 
of thought and service, that what we call getting a 
right start is no mean work. The moment a child 
crosses the threshold of being, it comes into contact 
with forces which are constantly wrangling and dis- 
puting for the mastery. Amongst these forces are 
ideas — wrong ideas, right ideas; ideas which, when 
engrafted upon the soul, will blast and destroy every 
healthful thing by the wayside of character; ideas 
which can beautify and adorn every shrine at which 
the tired footman kneels. 

Out, then, from the womb of one's thoughts 
spring the ideas which must master every individual 
life. Out, then, from the quarry of one's own daily 
conceptions is dug the substance which is to be 
chiseled into that beautiful and imperishable thing 
we are pleased to call character. If these princi- 
ples be classified, the meaning is more readily per- 
ceived, — the principle of self-will, involving anger, 
disobedience, contempt for rightful authorit}^ ; of self- 
conceit, involving pride, ignorance, envy, and an 



174 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

unjust estimate of others ; self-indulgence, involv- 
ing jealousy and false ambition. 

There is another class which relates more par- 
ticularly to methods of living, — those low-bred, sen- 
sual conceptions of "getting on" in the world; 
those maxims grounded in fallacies and always mis- 
leading; those deceitful smiles by which friendship 
is manifested, but which have the dagger and a 
hand concealed ready to stab the good name. 

A third class relates to the Supreme Being and 
our obligations to him, — those damaging sneers of 
unbelief which tear down but do not build up ; 
those criminally-conceived and dastardly-written 
tales which fill the columns of the sensational week- 
lies ; those hypocritical professions of some, or those 
unholy convictions by which one elects a life of 
alienation from God rather than one of prayer and 
devout living. 

The test to which our Sunday-school work is 
put, is to answer in the affirmative whether we are 
neutralizing, eradicating, and destroying, in largest 
measure, the trend of these evils. 

Granting that the major part of those who unite 
with the Church are converts from the Sunday- 
school classes, it is still all too true that the ratio is 
not half what it should be, considering the increased 



FORGING A MISSING LINK. 175 

facilities and wonderful opportunities for accom- 
plishing this work. 

There is a lad. He is buoyant, wide-awake, ir- 
repressible. He is, perhaps, the brightest factor in 
the circle at home. Dowered with most earnest in- 
tellectual powers, his teacher prophesies great things 
concerning his future. But he is shy of religion. 
He has but little love for truth and less for the house 
of God. He attends the Sunday-school, and that 
seems to be enough. As to membership in the Church, 
there is ample time for that step. The crisal hour 
of his life is at hand, and nobody seems to know it. 
By an unhappy train of circumstances, he makes 
the acquaintance of a villainous boy. Acquaintance 
ripens into friendship, and friendship into a close 
intimacy. These bo} T s become bosom companions. 
A series of low-bred, sneaking practices is the out- 
come. Fast upon the heels of the scurrilous story 
and the vulgar language is the spirit of self-com- 
placency. Soon the restraints of home are snapped 
asunder, wherein he ridicules the authority of his 
mother. He cuts loose from his moorings at the 
Sunday-school and sneers at things sacred. His 
trunk is now locked, for it contains the latest on 
infidelity and perhaps obscenity. Beer is a favorite 
drink, and the club-room a delightful resort. 



176 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

Take another instance— a girl. She is tender, 
affectionate, beautiful Home has many attractions, 
but none so great as herself. She, too, is a member 
of the Sunday-school; but there is a singular lack 
of power somewhere in adapting means to an end. 
There is no close, consecutive following up of con- 
victions and impressions. There are no personal 
private interviews upon the vital question of sur- 
rendering the soul to God, and of membership in 
the Church. There is but little else than the usual 
routine, and the use of means as an end, but not to 
an end. Presently worldly society has a stronger 
fascination for this girl than religious people. Ir- 
reverent fiction becomes intensely interesting. So- 
cial dancing is now defended, and apologies are made 
for the ball-room. Idleness follows, then ungov^ 
ernable tempers, keeping company with tipplers, 
and in some cases shipwreck of character. 

It is enough to make angels weep to look upon 
the stranded lives of those who set out in life's 
morning so hopefully. Descriptions are unneces- 
sary. Skimming the surface of things, instead of 
grappling with the great questions of character and 
duty; dwindling into the merest shams, and becom- 
ing objects of pity, rather than the exponents of 
meritorious doing; discussing the last play at the 
theater with great warmth, but never able to out- 



FORGING A MISSING LINK. 177 

line the features of a book, and never devoting 
themselves to a reading circle or the company of 
intellectual people — with such an outlook, can it be 
wondered at that some are asking, "What will the 
harvest be?" Six days out of seven the young 
walk hard upon the edge of social and mental vol- 
canoes — volcanoes whose slumbering fires gather 
force with the escape of every year, and wait but 
for an opportune moment when they will ingulf 
the unsuspecting soul in irretrievable ruin. In the 
presence of such dangers, how unworthy is that 
teacher who can teach his class and attend the the- 
ater the self-same week, or who can neglect his charge 
until demoralization and defeat are at hand! 

It is of Christ, then, to pick out of the mire of 
ignoble things an immortal spirit, and put it upon a 
career of intellectual and spiritual prosperity — of 
Christ to elevate the moral feelings, refine the tastes, 
guide the judgment, and lead out the soul into the 
simple but thrilling experiences of love and holiness. 

Such is the work of those who assume the 
duties of religion, and especially those who are dow- 
ered with all the fire and enthusiasm of youth. The 
Master requires of us a more capable and thorough 
unfolding of his Father's words. He was a teacher 
and leader of the highest order — a spiritual and in- 
spiring Friend. His mission was pre-eminent in this, 



178 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

that it unfolded the mind and heart of heaven. 
How beautifully he told the story of the Father's 
love, and how touching the lessons of long-suffering! 
How graphically, too, he outlined the scheme of re- 
demption, the relation of the guilty to the atone- 
ment, and the purposes of God toward all wrong- 
doing ! 

What lines of light are those centering about 
the picture of man's recovery from sin in the scenes 
that were to culminate in the tragic event of Cal- 
vary, about the daily life of the man who accepts 
Christ as a personal Savior, and the" joyous experi- 
ences and thrilling destinies of those who draw near 
in death to the streets of gold! Nor vindictive 
threats, nor blandishments of the multitude, could 
seal his lips. By parable and prophecy, by prayer 
and entreaty, by anxiety and disappointment, by the 
faith of his disciples and the unbelief of his rela- 
tives, he declared the purposes and possibilities of 
his errand to men. 

Our work with the young is to reproduce in 
spirit as well as in the letter these outline truths, 
and to so exemplify them in our lives that others 
may be saved. It is to enforce and illustrate the 
divine connections and divine purposes. 

By our intense enthusiasm for the truth we may 
put ourselves into communion with those who are 



FORGING A MISSING LINK. 179 

just commencing life. We may impress them with 
the fact that the great aim of life is to get into com- 
plete harmony with the conscience and heart of the 
moral universe. We may urge them to press up 
into the higher schools, and lay broad and substan- 
tial foundations in liberal culture. We may open 
up the way to these schools. We may so illuminate 
the life of the Savior that, falling in love with the 
common brotherhood, they may devote themselves 
exclusively to its interests. Our consecrated young 
people may thus throw the sunlight of hope and 
purpose into the hearts of unnumbered thousands. 
Divine doors of opportunity will fling themselves 
wide open on every hand if we are true to God — 
doors into which we may press with all the wealth 
of accumulated resources until we reach the very 
throne-room of intellectual and spiritual royalty. 
Should we dedicate ourselves to this supreme idea 
and come into direct contact with those who need 
our help, the next generation would have throb- 
beats greater than any that have ever been felt since 
the birth of Adam. " Find your purpose," says one, 
"and fling out your life to it, and the loftier } r our 
purpose the more sure you will be to make the 
world richer with every enrichment of yourself." 

If we really have under our care the men and 
women of the future, we should realize it. The next 



180 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

generation should be better and do better than this 
one. We ought to be able to put into the editorial 
chairs of the secular press, and into the seats at our 
Legislatures, men who will not play fast and loose 
with great moral questions ; men who will not be 
cowed in the presence of a great duty, simply be- 
cause they ride on a pass in the rail-cars ; men who 
will not pander to the baser passions of public senti- 
ment, and hold office for mercenary purposes alone. 
The world needs, and must have, unpurchasable 
men — those who will recognize moral obligations, 
and clothe themselves with honor, and not with 
shame. 

The world has yet to be conquered. The twen- 
tieth century may be a crisis in the history of the 
globe, and the men who are to face the battles are 
now the lads who are under our touch. 

God-speed, then, to every gleaner in the fields 
of Christian effort ! The ever-quickening and ever- 
abounding help is at hand. The days are sweeping 
past us. Our life-time escapes. We shall soon be 
face to face with the results produced by our in- 
wrought convictions and our prayerful efforts, and 
it shall soon be known to all who have sinned and 
suffered whether our work shall remain or whether 
it shall be burned with fire. 



^ebious is fyt marrlj of ©ritflj, but slje 



rtBXJBr firEs. 

1S1 




A 



Chapter T^irteerpth. 

STRAIGHTFORWARD. 

riAO look into the faces of young people is to 
X be reminded of the special legion of Julius 
Caesar called the u Allauda," and which he used 
with such tremendous success in his expedition 
against the Gauls. Upon every sword, helmet, 
and shield were engraved a "lark," with out- 
stretched wings, in an effort upward, — the whole a 
symbol of alertness. 

Why? The fires of ambition are burning upon 
the hearth, and the thrill of expected pleasures is in 
the veins. You see this in the eye. It is forced 
upon you by the ringing laughter, the elastic step, 
the eas}^ bound over difficulties, and the general 
abandon of the days. The footway leads through 
an enchanted land, where the landscapes are always 
under the glow of a joyous sunlight, the hill-sides 
fringed with the golden-rod, the bloom in the mead- 
ows, and every day there is music and love in the 
air. Young people wander in pairs where nature 

183 



1 84 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

is fresh and beautiful, where streams dance gayly 
by, and where the stretch of the distant mountains 
lends such a delightful charm to the feelings that a 
weird and happy consciousness possesses them en- 
tire. It is the only pure dream-land that belongs 
to our wakeful moments. 

But as travelers over a desert are sometimes de- 
ceived by the mirage, so the brightest visions of 
youth may reveal unhappy retrospections and mel- 
ancholy hours. But there is no need for melan- 
choly either in age or youth. Beyond the mirage 
or the threatening skies there are substantial 
joys. 

From what has already been said, we conclude 
that the highest type of character can not be reached 
by following the dictates of an enlightened intellect, 
cultivated judgment, or a positive will. The plow- 
share must go deeper than that. Along with a high 
degree of physical culture the Greeks blended that 
of the intellect, and so their young men, with splen- 
did physique, poetic temperament, and cultivated 
tastes, made not only magnificent scholars, but mag- 
nificent soldiers. But scholarship and soldiery do 
not constitute the whole measure of our life. A 
knowledge of art, familiarity with science, a grasp 
of history, politics, philosophy, and literature, will 
not furnish us with the materials out of which to 



STRAIGHTFOR WARD. 1 8 5 

construct a perfect manhood or golden woman- 
hood. 

And, then, there are untraveled highways in eter- 
nity, over which we must pass. We can not escape 
them. When our life fades out, which way in the 
universe will our spirits fly? Which point of the 
compass will they elect? The north? Which way 
is north? The south? Who can tell without a 
compass? With illimitable fields stretching hither 
and yon, and the soul a perfect stranger, she must 
poise bewildered in the presence of immensity, nor 
yet will know the choice she ought to make. Now 
the unfathomable has been reached; now it is the 
shoreless sea ; now the eternal years ! 

Where are the bowers of bliss in which the pure 
and good are congregated, singing their joyous 
songs? Where is the land of which priests and 
peasants and] poets have dreamed in their medita- 
tions of love? Where is it that flowers bloom per- 
ennially, where night succeeds no day, and where 
gloom and melancholy do not show their raven 
wings? 

And where is the avenue of light and glory 

leading to the center of the universe, where the 

brave spirits walk who were once upon the earth? 

Where the path which the Master took when he 

left his friends on the crest of Olivet, gazing up 

16 



1 86 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

into the unfathomed dome of the sky, and wishing 
themselves by his side? 

What will a lost spirit do in such bewilderment 
and trial? Wandering aimlessly amid the bound- 
less spaces, shall she not be seized by some spirit 
foul which knows no peace herself, and, dragging 
her sister spirit down into the dismal caverns, chain 
her hopes during the long roll-beat of the ages? 

Surely, we all need the help of the holy evangels, 
who, like their Maker, are enswathed in light, sing- 
ing as they move, and, sweeping down from the 
portals of bliss, bear up the brave spirits of the 
men whose lives were benedictions to the race, 
and whose deaths were brilliant periods upon the 
earth. 

Whatever some men may say to the contrary, 
it is nevertheless true that the shadow of the style 
on the dial-plate points forever toward high noon for 
all those who are honest with themselves. As they 
are children of nature, every plant, and tree, and 
shrub ; every ridge, and river, and lake, and sea ; 
every cloud, and rainbow, and sunset, are expres- 
sions of favor from a higher power. As they are 
children of a mental world, every thought and pur- 
pose of the mind, every invention or discovery, 
every solution of a moral problem or construction 
of an argument, all beauty in art, all gain in busi- 



STRA1GHTF0R WARD. 187 

ness, all power in science, all laws, all systems of 
belief, are but fragments of good thrown off from 
that infinite Power we call God. As they are chil- 
dred of a spirit-realm, all aspiration and desire for 
better things, all searchings after peace, all power 
of perception, all beauty of the imagination, all 
forecasting of future events, all speed, all knowl- 
edge, are but emanations of that Being of whom one 
has said that "he is himself crowned with the glo- 
ries of an infinite and unfading virtue; crowned 
with a goodness blossoming out into every imag- 
inable beauty — a goodness bathing the whole divine 
nature in the rosy light of an unutterable tender- 
ness, mercy, and love, insuring to his creatures the 
most blessed results." 

Communion, then, with such a power is the su- 
preme opportunity of a life-time, and must interject 
into the life the possibilities of eternal things. For 
the Christian life does carry with it nameless re- 
wards. Is there no remuneration in possessing a 
healthy and reputable name in a world where there 
is so much that is deceptive and rotten? Is it noth- 
ing to own a clean, wholesome conscience, where 
there are so many consciences in the market for 
sale? — nothing to be able to resist temptation, and 
to avoid the snares whilst the feet of others are 
getting tangled in the fatal web? — nothing to get 



188 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

answers to prayer? — nothing in leaving behind a 
decent example for others to follow when once we 
have passed the threshold of the eternities? 

But now is the hour of battle ; to-morrow shall 
be the day of final reward. To-day we grapple with 
treason to all good things ; to-morrow the peans 
of victory ma}' be sung. The enemies are quick 
and powerful, but he who fights with truth shall 
surely win the field. 

Hengest and Horsa were two bold Saxon mar- 
iners of the fifth century. They loved the ocean 
far better than they did the land. Nothing was so 
heartsome to them as the music of the waves as 
their vessels rode over the storm-swept seas. They 
were pagans in their faith, and had a large follow- 
ing. They taught their countrymen that to die in 
battle would admit them into the halls of Valhalla — 
their heaven — where they would be permitted to 
drink forever the ruby wine out of the skulls of 
their enemies. The Britons, overrun by the Picts 
and Scots from the north, induced Hengest and 
Horsa, and their comrades, to come and defend 
them from their enemies. They did so, and, after 
some fierce battles, overcame them. Then they 
turned upon the Britons themselves, conquered 
them, confiscated their houses and lands, and ruled 
them with a rod of iron. 



STRAIGHTFOR WARD. 1 89 

It is dangerous to invite into the sanctity of the 
affections that duality of power, unbelief and world- 
liness, that our treacherous enemies may be put to 
rout, as the lull after the battle will be more disas- 
trous than the battle itself. 

And there is no time to lose in securing the 
overshadowing influences of religion. 

The time element must be considered. We must 
be equipped to-day. No one can bridge that awful 
gulf which separates the present from the past. The 
distance is not great, but the chasm is deep and im- 
passable. And although the present is ours, it will 
be but a brief while until the same bridgeless deep 
will intercept our steps from it. What we need is 
to cultivate the power of vision ; to get a bold, keen 
eye to see things exactly as they are, not as they 
seem. Many valuable things hang upon the decis- 
ion of a moment. 

You are enjoying a sail upon the lake. By some 
unforeseen circumstance the young lady at your side 
falls overboard. If you do not act quickly you will 
soon have nothing to do but to stand and beat your 
breast over her lifeless body as it is dragged upon 
the shore. It is the work of a moment, but a mo- 
ment is long enough to save her life. 

Your home is on fire. A few buckets of water 
will drown it out. You must not stand and gape at 



igo BEYOND THE RUTS. 

it, or run about wildly, not knowing what to do. 
You must hurl the water on the devouring flame. 
Time is quick and men must be quick. Young men 
must be quick. Young women must be quick. How 
fast we travel in our dreams at night ! In an instant 
of time we are in a distant city. We sell and buy. 
We converse with friends. Days and months and 
even years sweep past us. We get rich ; we marry ; 
we die and go into the unseen ; and when we awake 
we find our sleep has only been of a few moments' 
duration. 

Such, no doubt, shall be the surprise when eter- 
nity dawns. The dream of human things shall be 
past, and the real and ever-abiding shall be at hand. 
It does not pay to waste the hours of a ticking 
clock by building castles in the air, which shall col- 
lapse in an hour. Whatever should be done, should 
be done now. There is, among men, but little else 
than the semblance of things — a seeming, a shadow. 
Our days are as the sudden changes of a panorama 
or the shiftings of the stage. Who may stay the 
constant movements of the hours? That which en- 
grossed us yesterday is now forgotten, and to-mor- 
row will cancel the absorbing interests of the present. 

What has become of the empires of the Old 
World, with the men and women who figured so 
largely in the events which are now only known in 



STRATGHTFOR WARD. 191 

history? Where is their prestige in art, diplomacy, 
scholarship, and arms — even their wealth and splen- 
did pageantry and victories? 

The sepulcher is the shrine where travelers pause 
to inquire and meditate, and then pass on. 

The rapid flight of the seasons has the same 
tongue. Hardly does nature clothe herself in the 
beauty of May until the harvests are upon us, then 
the luxuriant growths of autumn, then the chill of 
the winter's morning. 

The horizon bounding a little life is as change- 
ful as the sky which bends over our heads. The 
fog, the storm-cloud, the sunlight, the hail, the 
evening calm,— these make up the warp and woof of 
the days, from gentle spring on until the flowers are 
ready again to bloom. And these seem no more 
necessary to the days than are their counterpart in 
the process of our experience. 

The average life-time has become much reduced, 
and a new generation will be upon the stage in an 
insignificant while. Since life, then, is so brief, why 
must we hold it in rigid abeyance? Why not enjoy 
the present in its fullness, and when the future 
comes, enter the open door, and call about us the 
things which may then and there be found? There 
can only be one answer to such a question : Because 
of the inseparable connection between self-denial, 



192 BEYOND THE RUTS. 

holiness, and permanent soul-security. To cast be- 
hind one's back the sinful trend of alienating pleas- 
ures, to trample under foot transient and unsatisfy- 
ing joys, is to invite, as our constant guests, the 
holy evangels of light, and hope, and power. No 
less a genius in the art of living than he of Strat- 
ford-on-Avon has boldly said: 

" The heavens forbid but that our loves and comforts 
Should increase even as our days do grow." 

To all of which we yield our enthusiastic and 
eternal assent. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Nov. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



